Two long months of detention, then deliverance.
Coline Fay, imprisoned in Senegal since her participation in mid-November in a demonstration in support of opponent Ousmane Sonko, was released and deported to France, and arrived in Paris on Friday.
Coming out of an oppressive incarceration, she welcomed the “very warm reunion” with her family.
When she is told, from her jail at the Liberté 6 women's remand center in Dakar, that she will benefit from provisional release, the Isère resident does not know that she will be able to return to France .
“I had 5 minutes to pack my things.
I had no passport, no money, no phone,” she says.
But as soon as she leaves prison, a plainclothes police officer stops her and then takes her in a pick-up to the airport, where she will be escorted until she gets on the plane.
Also read “It’s a permanent stress”: the unbearable wait of the parents of Coline Fay, incarcerated in Senegal
As soon as she arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport on Friday morning, Coline Fay fell into the arms of her parents and her brother Antonin.
Throughout her detention, her family continued to mobilize for her release, calling on political leaders and organizing several demonstrations of support in Grenoble, where she is from.
“It’s a very heavy mental load, a permanent stress.
We can’t help but be anxious for her,” her mother Véronique told us last December.
Coline expresses her desire to “thank each person” who supported her.
Incarcerated with 35 inmates
Coline Fay's life story traces the story of a humanist and committed young woman.
During her physiotherapy studies in Andalusia, she campaigned with the environmental organization Extinction Rebellion.
Those close to him highlight his pacifist side.
It was in Spain that she met members of the Senegalese community in exile.
In November 2022, she drove to the country of Teranga and settled there, made connections and found a job as a physiotherapist at a center for pregnant women.
Until his arrest in mid-November.
For two months, she was incarcerated in harsh conditions.
The physiotherapist was incarcerated with 35 inmates in a cell designed for 20 people.
Forced promiscuity which forced him to share his mattress with another woman.
“It was quite impressive, especially at the beginning.
There are children, pregnant women, others elderly,” relates the young woman.
Contact with loved ones is rare, limited to five minutes of phone calls per week.
“I was bugged when I spoke on the phone with my parents, there are certain words that you cannot use.
Prison is mentally difficult,” she tells us.
Especially since the 26-year-old young woman has never been certain of her fate.
“Like all political prisoners, I was in uncertainty.
We don’t know if we have a day, a month or a year of detention left,” she laments.
Shortly after her arrest, she began a hunger strike in protest, which was interrupted after ten days.
Coline was accused, among other things, of "conspiracy against the authority of the State" and "acts or maneuvers likely to compromise public security", and was charged again last week for "attempting to illegally leave a correspondence ".
She faced life imprisonment.
Direct intervention by Élisabeth Borne?
According to her, his arrest during a rally in support of Ousmane Sonko, the main political opponent currently in prison, was completely arbitrary.
“We were just sitting on a sidewalk, peacefully.
The police were driving around with trucks and seemed to be stopping people at random.
They made the decision to take me on board when they saw that I was wearing a bracelet supporting Sonko,” she relates, denouncing a “criminalization of political opponents and activists”.
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna was questioned in mid-December on the subject in a letter sent by the young woman's lawyer, Juan Branco, and two left-wing deputies, the ecologist Aurélien Taché and the Insoumise Sophia Chikirou.
Despite several appeals from her parents to the authorities which went unheeded, the French government finally pressed the Senegalese authorities to expedite the young girl's case, said one of her lawyers, Me Cheikh Koureyssi Ba.
According to another of his lawyers, Juan Branco, former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne was personally involved in this release.
“We were told that, on the morning of her departure from Matignon, Élisabeth Borne got directly involved personally to inform the Senegalese authorities of the situation,” he told us.
This Saturday at 1 p.m., a gathering in the presence of Coline Fay will take place in Grenoble.