Grassroots mobilisations against child deportations in France and Britain. A preliminary analysis of recruitment patterns and motivations

For Western countries, migrant children liable to removal1 elicit a stark tension between commitments to protecting children and to limiting "unwanted" migration. As a result, children and young people have featured prominently, and often controversially, in numerous policy debates on asylum and migration in European countries.

However, studies on their role as actors or objects of contention within social movements remain scarce. This paper therefore considers local mobilisations against child, young people and family removals in France and Britain, based on local social movement entrepreneurs' accounts. The objective is to investigate the "politics of childhood' and its impact on collective action in a context of securitization of migration in Europe.