Arenc_affair

The Arenc affair began on April 16, 1975 in Marseille, France, when attorney Sixte Ugolini publicly condemned the police's kidnapping of his client, Mohamed Chérif, a Moroccan citizen with legal status. Shortly thereafter, the general public discovered a dormant warehouse located in the port of Arenc that had been covertly used by the prefecture to detain non-nationals (primarily Algerians) awaiting deportation for more than a decade, outside of any established legal framework. The affair foreshadowed the establishment of administrative detention centers, which were brought into law in October 1981.