Listen to many questions about “Where we can learn French”.

The demand is huge, and even though the Thot school responds in part, we're not satisfied with everything. In this course we have accepted 80 applications, knowing that we have 45 places. The squares of the first course were filled from 10 to 12 hours, for the second of 5 hours and in the latter of 50 minutes! We have professional professors who are proposing intensive courses. Course of 160 hours for 4 months. In addition, we collaborate in other daily life needs: administrative, legal, professional or emotional. When they are like this in the course, the other concerns occupy less space in the spirit. In spite of everything, we do not intend to tell you that everything is fixed.

Whether with or without papers, do you all accept it?

For the undocumented, it's more complicated. In fact, we are in contact with those who are out of step for asylum protection. In other words, with those who claim the right to protection, with the refugees or with the dublins, that is, with those who have left fingerprints in another European country when they enter Europe and follow the Dublin Convention, where they have to make the application for asylum. If they are refused asylum, at the end of the course we are with the undocumented, but that is not a problem.

Despite the fact that it cannot be generalised, what is the feeling of the immigrants arriving in France?

Everyone has their point of view and their trajectory. However, a rather general feeling is that they never give up. Even if you've seen it and you've lived it deeply, you're always moving forward. After leaving the village, after a long journey, they face the horrible phase of France. It's awesome, and we can't imagine it instead. Sometimes they complain that it's hard for them, but always standing. Some have become angry, because they have heard that France is a country of freedom and equality, but in the end they have not experienced it at all. Others say that since they are in France everything is going well, they have found people of gold. I once asked one what he had marked in France, and the answer was that the police are honest. I cannot say that, but it must be understood that it came from Afghanistan, which went through Bulgaria and Serbia, where the police send the dogs to kill the immigrants. Our students are aware of all the difficulties, they see racism that does not appear, but also solidarity. Of course, for those who sleep abroad it is very difficult, they are incapacitated by exhaustion.

If you look at the big media, you might think that the French don't want immigrants.

Many of us were advised to listen when we created Thot. But in the end, we have almost never had attacks, regardless of the expression “What do you do for the French who don’t know French?” of always. The truth is that we have been positively surprised by the welcome we receive: For 40 days we have raised EUR 66,000 thanks to popular funding! Many of us were grateful for that, because we had given them the opportunity to do something for immigrants. We have almost every day requests to become collaborators. From the institutions we have never felt disinterest. I therefore believe that, in spite of everything, the French are concerned about the situation of migrants. Although many of the adversaries are mentioned, I believe they are a minority. But to say that the spirit of welcome is the predominant does not mean that there are no enemies.

What future do you see for immigrants?

The truth is, I'm very afraid of them. For a start, because it is not clear what the French elections are going to give. Even though a party cannot change everything, it is terrible. I am shocked to learn that Hungary systematically stops immigrants. Governments manage to get policies passed against immigrants. For example, the Italian Navy was once taking them out of the Mediterranean, now sending them to Libya or to Turkey. The rate of acceptance of asylum protection is 30% and appears to be even weaker in 2017. The future will not be joyful because the environment is getting worse year after year. They are increasingly being sent to their peoples, to a people in which they have had to flee.

What do you do about that?

Faced with these terrible policies and those issues that we do not master, it gives us certainty that we will do something. By creating Thot School, I've learned that everyone can do something. There are thousands and thousands of immigrants in a really precarious and black situation, but I also know that some of them are in our school and will, or at least, be in a better situation in a particular language. We must not be aroused by what governments or their detractors say, or by the immense greatness of the need for help. We can all do something to help immigrants.