Author Archives: Darcie Fontaine

About Darcie Fontaine

Darcie Fontaine is an assistant professor of history at the University of South Florida. Her first book, Decolonizing Christianity: Religion and the End of Empire in France and Algeria (Cambridge University Press, 2016), explores the role of Christianity in the decolonization of Algeria, tracing the transformation of Christianity from its position as the moral foundation of European imperialism to its role as a radical voice of political and social change. Her new projects examine the French Protestant aid organization Cimade's relationship to state power and postcolonial Algeria's relationship with Latin America in the aftermath of independence.

The Politics of Neutrality: Cimade, Humanitarianism, and State Power in Modern France

September 11, 2018 by
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In its 2008 annual report on the status of “centers and locations of administrative retention” for undocumented migrants (les sans-papiers) in France, the French Protestant aid organization Cimade accused Brice Hortefeux, the French minister of immigration, of engaging in a dubious and polemical attempt to sanction the organization for its increasingly harsh critiques of the government’s policies and practices toward these populations.1 Between 1984 and 2007, Cimade had been the only nongovernmental organization (NGO) to have access inside the twenty-five centres de rétention administrative (administrative Continue reading → Continue reading →