Souleymane is a motorcycle courier. From dawn to the lifeless of night time, he ferries takeout to Parisians for an unnamed meals supply app. It’s powerful, thankless work, however there are larger issues on his thoughts. His immigration case is able to be heard by the French Workplace for the Safety of Refugees and Stateless Individuals (Ofpra), the place he should show that he has confronted adequate persecution to qualify for asylum and be granted the suitable to remain in France.
Souleymane’s Story, an award-winning 2024 French movie that was launched in the USA this 12 months, follows its title character over the 48 hours main as much as his interview. He has lately arrived in Paris after a harrowing multiyear trek from Guinea searching for financial alternative, determined to become profitable to ship house to his ailing mom. In Paris, a full day of labor may internet him a pair hundred euros, however a motorcycle crash, disgruntled buyer, or run-in with the authorities may convey his precarious existence crashing down.
Souleymane is a motorcycle courier. From dawn to the lifeless of night time, he ferries takeout to Parisians for an unnamed meals supply app. It’s powerful, thankless work, however there are larger issues on his thoughts. His immigration case is able to be heard by the French Workplace for the Safety of Refugees and Stateless Individuals (Ofpra), the place he should show that he has confronted adequate persecution to qualify for asylum and be granted the suitable to remain in France.
Souleymane’s Story, an award-winning 2024 French movie that was launched in the USA this 12 months, follows its title character over the 48 hours main as much as his interview. He has lately arrived in Paris after a harrowing multiyear trek from Guinea searching for financial alternative, determined to become profitable to ship house to his ailing mom. In Paris, a full day of labor may internet him a pair hundred euros, however a motorcycle crash, disgruntled buyer, or run-in with the authorities may convey his precarious existence crashing down.
But this isn’t the story he’s practising for his Ofpra agent. As an alternative, he arms over every day’s earnings to an “asylum coach” to feed him faux papers and a fabricated story of persecution. As Souleymane pedals, he practices his strains, struggling to memorize the small print of a younger activist jailed for his beliefs. “I don’t know politics!” he says in frustration. However it’s what the authorities wish to hear, and he must get this proper.
French director Boris Lojkine makes use of these twin tales of Souleymane—the fact of being a gig-economy-employed immigrant and the fictional story he clings to—to inform an incisive, heartbreaking, and visually beautiful story of the unseen labor completed by immigrants in a rustic that doesn’t need them there, even because it depends on them for its insatiable urge for food.
An individual working for Uber Eats in Paris on April 24, 2020.Philippe Lopez/AFP through Getty Photos
Like many nations in Europe, France has skilled a surge in assist for the far proper in recent times, together with a sharp rise in racism and xenophobia. In 2023, the nation’s Nationwide Consultative Fee on Human Rights recorded a spike of hate crimes, citing a “important deterioration within the notion of immigration.” The far-right Nationwide Rally (RN) social gathering has made “[stopping] the flood of immigrants” a key a part of its platform, which entails measures together with enacting extra obstacles to French citizenship and reducing well being take care of undocumented migrants. The RN gained an unprecedented 31 p.c of the vote in final 12 months’s European election, with RN voters saying that immigration was the primary concern driving them to the polls.
Nonetheless, many individuals in France are attempting to push again. After the primary spherical of the nation’s legislative elections on June 30, 2024, when the RN topped election outcomes and appeared poised to enter authorities, French voters turned out in pressure to protest the far proper. They backed this up within the second-round vote, when centrist and leftist voters got here collectively to push the RN to 3rd place. Nonetheless, France has remained deeply fragmented and mired in political chaos, with three collapsed governments for the reason that elections. Far-right chief Marine Le Pen has stated her social gathering’s victory was merely delayed, and the RN continues to steer within the polls forward of the 2027 presidential election.
Whereas France’s political future is unsure, the RN’s potential to normalize its anti-immigration rhetoric doesn’t bode effectively for the nation’s estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants. Throughout the West, even politicians who is perhaps extra supportive of immigration have more and more used incendiary language, reminiscent of calling immigrants “unlawful.” The Vera Institute of Justice has warned of the risks of describing migrants as a “surge” or “flood”—which then-French Prime Minister François Bayrou confronted backlash for earlier this 12 months.
When this dehumanizing rhetoric is repeated in media protection of immigration, it influences public opinion. Over the previous decade, tabloids have whipped the Western public right into a frenzy over fears of a “nice alternative.” And this goes past the information to incorporate fictional portrayals. In movie and tv, immigrant characters are sometimes related to crime or in any other case decreased to flat, one-dimensional stereotypes.
By selecting to inform Souleymane’s story, Lojkine challenges these stereotypes. Lojkine doesn’t add synthetic sympathy to his movie, which may simply come off as cloying or cliched. Nor does he amplify the overt racism confronted by migrants in France. As an alternative, his movie merely facilities the on a regular basis lifetime of one of many hundreds of supply couriers whose labor propels the gig financial system.
The movie strikes at a fast, frantic tempo, and the drama is offered by the fixed factors of friction that Souleymane faces alongside his route. These tiny inconveniences turn out to be a matter of survival. He takes a unsuitable flip and crashes his bike, jeopardizing his solely mode of transportation and gear for making a living. The client then refuses the crumbled bag of meals, disputing the order and briefly suspending Souleymane’s account. A delay in choosing up an order results in a shouting match with a restaurant proprietor.
Souleymane’s e-bike is without doubt one of the few gadgets he has to his identify. With out the suitable to work, he doesn’t even have his personal supply account. As an alternative, he makes use of the hand-me-down profile of a fellow Guinean immigrant named Emmanuel. He acts like Souleymane’s pimp, taking a hefty minimize of his income and regulating his entry to the account. At random factors within the day, the app calls for a selfie for verification, forcing Souleymane to trace down the elusive Emmanual earlier than going onto the following supply.
Souleymane doesn’t have his personal place to sleep, both. He finishes every day by catching the ten p.m. bus again to a shelter on the outskirts of city, the place he sleeps in cramped barracks, earlier than waking up at 6 a.m. to name a hotline to order that night time’s mattress.
In some methods, Souleymane is “good” at being an immigrant. He is aware of the right way to leap by way of the suitable hoops, preserve his head down, and work exhausting. However on no account is it a real livelihood. Between paying Emmanuel and his asylum coach, he has much less and fewer cash to ship house, as we’re reminded of throughout bittersweet calls together with his mom, the one moments of quiet calm through the movie.
All of the whereas, Souleymane focuses his vitality on memorizing the story that he believes is his ticket to asylum, if he can simply bear in mind the names of varied native political leaders and the format of the Guinean jail he was supposedly held in. His coach has a complete roster of personas for migrants to select from; one fellow classmate, as an example, is studying the woman-fleeing-domestic-violence position. However as he tries to weave a brand new story of adversity to show that he has earned a proper to be in France, audiences see how exhausting his life is, even with out the lie.
Sangaré as Souleymane in Souleymane’s Story.Boris Lojkine through Conic
French audiences have been able to embrace Souleymane’s Story. The movie debuted on the 2024 Cannes Movie Competition, the place it gained the Jury Prize within the Un Sure Regard class—the pageant’s choice of movies that champion non-traditional views. It was nominated for eight César Awards and gained 4, together with Finest Unique Screenplay. Institution media and on a regular basis reviewers praised the movie upon its launch for each its filmmaking achievement and fullhearted pro-immigrant stance. A prime assessment on Letterboxd reads: “on nique uber eats et on ouvre les frontières” (“we’ll screw Uber Eats and open the borders”).
The important thing to Souleymane’s Story’s authenticity is its star. Abou Sangaré can be an immigrant from Guinea, who made the trek to Paris when he was an adolescent. For years, he struggled to realize everlasting residency. In France, he attended college and labored as a mechanic, earlier than he was found through the casting course of for this movie. His efficiency, which drew on his personal experiences, gained him considered one of Cannes’s prime performing awards, however it was solely after the movie’s launch that he was granted a residency allow: Now, he works as a mechanic, a profession deemed in-demand within the nation.
Because the movie’s success brings consideration to the realities of delivering meals on two wheels, a greater future for Paris’s bike couriers may very well be close by. A latest report from the French company for meals, surroundings, and work security detailed the dangers confronted by bike couriers—together with exhaustion and the chance of accidents—and referred to as for stronger authorities oversight. In the meantime, the nation’s labor and transport ministries met with representatives of gig work platforms in June to debate their accountability to their contractors; France can be contemplating proposing laws that might guarantee higher labor protections and honest wages for couriers.
For now, although, supply staff proceed to toil away with modest assist. Tucked away on a aspect avenue close to the middle of Paris is the Maison des Coursiers, or Couriers’ Home. The constructing is a refuge for the town’s supply staff, providing a spot off the road to relaxation and recharge. Along with scorching drinks and telephone chargers, the middle affords varied types of authorized and social help. At present, a big film poster for Souleymane’s Story hangs within the frequent room, exhibiting Sangaré as he cycles down the road, his face weary however decided.
