Marriages of convenience | M6 | 66 minutes

It’s the new spectre haunting the immigration services. For some years now, marriage to a Frenchwoman has become a common way for a foreigner to obtain papers.At Meaux, recently, the court sentenced more than twenty people. The men were Tunisian and all came from the same village. Their “spouses” were recruited haphazardly in a shopping centre in the town. They received between €5,000 and €9,000. However, some naïve young women are taken advantage of: they fall in love, marry and then are forced to divorce a few months later. As a result, the authorities are more and more suspicious of mixed marriages and this leads to some abuse: prenuptial interviews that turn into judicial interrogations, refusal to marry couples who are genuinely in love. How do you combat marriages of convenience without attacking the real love stories? What means does the police have to verify what the young couples say? What risk is there for the women, and men, who agree to say “yes” for money?