Refugees or migrants? The political stakes of a juridical distinction ; Réfugiés ou migrants ? Les enjeux politiques d'une distinction juridique

Abstract

International audience ; The refugee definitions that have followed one another over time are often presented as necessities, solutions developed to address the objective problems of the groups and individuals targeted by these definitions. From an analysis of the historical transformations of the category of refugee anchored in the theoretical current of the construction of the public problems and the exploitation of the sources preserved in the archives of the Ofpra, this article shows the refugee definitions that have followed one another since the construction of the international category in the interwar period, are politically located. It shows that the category is changing according to political priorities, changes in international power relations, ways of formulating problems, finding them solutions, and ideological issues specific to a period. To better understand these issues, this article proposes to examine the variations of the groups included in the refugee definition while putting them into perspective with those who are excluded, at several moments in the 20th and 21st centuries. Lastly, he proposes to focus as much on the transformations of refugee definitions over time as on the different interpretations to which the same definition has given rise, in this case that of the Geneva Convention since 1952 in France. In so doing, it shows that the refugee's definitions speak much more about the societies that develop and implement them than about the individuals they are meant to refer to. ; Les définitions du réfugié qui se sont succédé dans le temps sont souvent présentées comme des nécessités, des solutions élaborées pour répondre aux problèmes objectifs des groupes et des individus visés par ces définitions. À partir d'une analyse des transformations historiques de la catégorie de réfugié ancrée dans le courant théorique de la construction des problèmes publics et l'exploitation des sources conservées aux archives de l'Ofpra, cet article montre que, loin d'avoir constitué des réponses neutres ...