French baker saves Guinean apprentice from deportation

A French baker who went on hunger strike for more than a week to protest against the planned deportation of his immigrant apprentice has won his case.

Stéphane Ravacley has been contacted by the prefecture of Haute-Saônoise and told that his Guinean employee, Laye Fodé Traoré, was given documentation with the right to stay in France.

Mr Traoré had been working for Mr Ravacley’s bakery in Besançon, eastern France, since 2019 but was to be deported after he turned 18 and lost the protection to be in France as a minor immigrant.

He entered France unaccompanied from across the Mediterranean sea when he was 16.

The baker, impressed by his apprentice’s discipline and desire to learn, was distressed on learning of his planned deportation and appealed to the authorities to grant him a residence permit.

Mr Ravacley, 50, was once rushed to hospital after getting weak because of the hunger strike that he started on 3 January.

Some 420,000 people signed an online petition in support of the baker and his apprentice.

Celebrities also wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron urging him to "protect a French citizen who put his life in danger in defence of humanistic values".