Award-winning migrant actor Abou Sangaré granted right to stay in France
Life imitates art: Abou Sangaré, a Guinean man living in France who won a prize at the Cannes film festival for playing an undocumented migrant seeking to stay in the country, has been granted a work permit, enabling him to do the same.
Abou Sangaré won rave reviews as the lead actor in last year's film L'Histoire de Souleymane (Souleymane’s Story) in which he played a food delivery cyclist in Paris who is preparing for an immigration interview.
He won the prize for best male performance in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, for a role that mirrored many of his own experiences as an undocumented migrant living in France.
After making three unsuccessful requests for work visas and being subject to a deportation order, he succeeded on Monday, 6 January in obtaining a one-year permit for the first time, according to his lawyer Claire Perinaud, having been offered a job as a mechanic.
"He will ask for renewals and will be able to move to longer-term visas at a later date," she said.
'I can't wait to start working in the garage'
Sangaré told the newspaper Libération that he intended to take up the mechanic's job, rather than pursue a career in film.
(with AFP)
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