From France to Mali, a deportee's struggle far from home

Moussa Sacko, 25, a Malian deported from France, where he had lived since he was a young child, drives his motorbike on a street in Bamako, Mali, December 5, 2024. Compared to Montreuil, Bamako feels like a different planet, said Sacko. The air is hot and sandy. Chickens strut outside. There are no pedestrian crossings and no drizzly mornings, he said. Sacko said days feel long, with no job to go to. He fears he won't see his ailing grandmother again. His relationship has ended. His eye condition has been untreated for months, and he has no replacement glasses, giving him migraines and blurred vision. REUTERS/Luc Gnago

BAMAKO/MONTREUIL (Reuters) - In December, Moussa Sacko spent his birthday in Mali scrolling through messages from friends with whom he celebrated a year earlier on Paris' Champs-Elysees. He hasn't seen any of them since being deported from France in July.

Like Sacko, hundreds of foreign nationals previously protected because they grew up in France now face expulsion under legislation introduced last year.