New French Movie "Welcome"

The New York Times talks about the political implications form the movie "Welcome:"

“Welcome” is the latest in a series of recent movies — Tom McCarthy’s “The Visitor,” Ken Loach’s “It’s a Free World,” Wayne Kramer’s “Crossing Over” and Costa-Gavras’s “Eden à l’Ouest” (Eden is West) — that explore aspects of the migrant and immigrant experience.

It differs in that it centers on a French law that makes it a crime — punishable by five years in jail and a €30,000, or about $40,000, fine — for helping anyone without papers to enter or stay in the country.

After the March 18 screening in Parliament, French deputies scheduled a debate for April 30 on article L622-1, the law governing the treatment of those caught assisting people who are in the country without papers. Last year, 4,423 French citizens were temporarily detained by the police under its terms, said Sandrine Mazetier, a Socialist deputy. In February, Monique Pouille, 59, a housewife who lives in a small village in northern France near Béthune, was held for nine hours for recharging migrants’ mobile phones.