Standing in the customs line at Charles-de-Gaulle Airport outside Paris around 9 am on June 2, Soraya (whose name has been changed at her request) was already thinking about reuniting with her parents a few hours later in Algiers, the city where she grew up and to which she frequently returns. But the 58-year-old woman, who holds both French and Algerian nationalities, was instead confronted with a very different scenario, culminating on the evening of June 2 with a deportation order and a one-year ban on returning to France.

She was not granted the usual voluntary departure period, generally set at 30 days, and was ordered to leave France within 48 hours. To justify the deportation order, the Paris Police Prefecture stated in the letter handed to Soraya – which Le Monde has seen – that she did not "prove effective and permanent residence in a dwelling designated as her primary home." Soraya has been living in France since 1993, obtained her certificate of French citizenship four years later, started a family there and has stable employment.

Contacted by Le Monde, the Police Prefecture did not respond. "They just tick boxes, repeating stereotyped phrases, even though their services have all the necessary information to verify the points they claim are problematic," criticized Samy Djemaoun, Soraya's lawyer. According to the prefecture, Soraya had "counterfeited, falsified, or issued under a different name a residence permit, or an identity or travel document."

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