Like other European countries, France boasts a strong welfare state, which academics in migration studies tend to view as a “pull factor” for potential residents. However, we often pay less attention to the system’s limits. In fact, in recent years, holes in the French care system have led some citizens to seek care in other European countries.
A “competitor” to France that may not come immediately to mind is Wallonia, a Francophone region in southern Belgium. It is estimated that about 8,233 French citizens with disabilities live in institutions located there. While this cross-border presence has a long history national media has focused on what is commonly described as a form of exile, including documented cases of abusive practices occurring in some Belgian institutions.
To better understand the causes and impacts of this migration, we conducted 23 interviews with parents of French citizens who moved to Belgian institutions, NGO representatives, and institution directors as part of the MiTSoPro research project . The move from France to Belgium concerns different types of disability, above all intellectual, psychic and autism spectrum disorders. In our research, the majority of the interviews with families were carried out with parents of autistic people.
