Dispersal of Exiles: What the Spatialisation of CAOs Reveals about Migration and Urban Policies

Abstract

This article addresses the rationales of dispersal of exiled people through the opening of CAOs (centres d’accueil et d’orientation) in two small and medium sized cities facing significant issues related to residential vacancy. The study of the spatialisation of these facilities, on a national scale but also within these cities, reveals the structural dimensions of urban and migration policies. In a context of centralised migration policy giving rise to a spatialised and quantitativist distribution of exiled persons, the article shows that local authorities and local interactions nevertheless play an important role in enabling their establishment. While local institutional actors develop a discourse on the opportunity that the arrival of exiles can represent for their territories, it must, in their view, remain discreet, or even invisible in the urban space. The article reveals the traditionally top-down nature of public policy in relation to these novel schemes: their locations are decided according to the usual categories of urban policies, based on the injunction in favour of creating a “social mix” and ethnicising representations.