“Have you ever made a vinaigrette?” With a peeler in his hand, Sidy, 17, shakes his head. Arriving in France without his parents, the young Guinean is welcomed for a weekend by a family and discovers “life in the French way”.
Next to him, Alicia Le Baut shows him how to mix vinegar, mustard and shallot. “Taste!” she says. Sidy complies and makes a face.
“It’s acidic! We don’t eat that in Guinea,” he says.
Other things surprise him about this family that lives in Bourgbarré, 16 km south of Rennes, in the northwest of France. Frédéric Chantran, Alicia’s partner, cooks every day. “At my house, only the women prepare food,” Sidy notes.
For over a year, the teenager has been discovering “life in the French way” by joining the Le Baut-Chantran family several weekends a month – and a few weeks in the summer – as part of the “Solidarity Families”, a departmental initiative.
Frédéric and Alicia discovered this program at the end of 2022. “We had thought about becoming a host family for a longer period of time, for a school year, but it requires a lot of organization. We were afraid we wouldn’t be up to it,” remembers Alicia, 24.
“Here, we welcome our godchildren for a weekend, it’s easier (…) we can build a strong relationship without devoting 100% of our time to it.”
“Being in family”
Like them, some 73 families are taking part in this programme which gives 80 unaccompanied minors (UMs) the opportunity to leave their homes to go for a bike ride, have a picnic… or simply watch a film on the sofa “as a family”.
“We wanted to propose a civic engagement that would be something simple, flexible, without any obligation of accommodation,” says Isabelle Hervé, who oversees the initiative. “Everyone can participate, we have families with children, retirees, single women aged 30, homosexual couples…”
“Young people often live in homes, they don’t know our codes: spending time with their family allows them to understand us better, to integrate better in France.”
For Frédéric and Alicia, welcoming Sidy is also a way to “deconstruct negative discourse on immigration, to remind people that migrants are people like any other,” says the 33-year-old Spanish teacher.
“I missed being with my family (…) and it also allowed me to learn to speak French better,” says Sidy, who arrived in Rennes in 2020 and is starting a welding training course.
Frédéric’s daughter, Ana, 10, is still “impatiently waiting for (Sidy) to come back.” “He’s like a big cousin who comes over on the weekend!”
Sidy smiles: Ana reminds him of his little sister, whom he hasn’t seen since he left Guinea.
“Adapt”
Sidy does not say much about his journey to France, except that his exile was “forced” and that he “was very afraid (crossing) the Mediterranean.”
From the first weekend, he felt confident and told them everything. “It did me good,” he confided. “We had lumps in our throats,” Alicia remembers.
As Sidy is still afraid of the sea, she and her partner prefer not to take her to the beach for the moment. “We adapt, it’s normal,” says Frédéric.
This Saturday in August, the family decides to go tree climbing in a park in Rennes. At 14 meters above the ground, hesitating between vertigo and laughter, Sidy advances cautiously, encouraged by Ana, who remains on the ground.
With a smile on his face, he sets off on a zip line.
For Frédéric, “it’s super important that Sidy finds himself outside the home, in a real family (…) that he can do activities that a 17-year-old would want to do.”
“We are often the ones who suggest that he join us, but Sidy can also write to us and say that he wants to spend the day here,” Alicia explains.
The family recently welcomed a second godson, Hussain, 16, from Bangladesh. “Maybe a friendship will develop between Sidy and Hussain,” hopes Alicia.
“Their exiles are different (…) but their future is here in France.”