Illicit Flows And Trafficking Southern Europe-Maghreb
Frightened — and rather legalistic — Algerian merchants , already quite fortunate , then resold their stores in Belsunce and fled elsewhere to exercise their talents , in spaces where the Islamist threat is more diffuse , even absent — further away in France or elsewhere in Europe .
At the same time and thereafter ( 1990 – 2000 ), about 1.2 million Moroccans emigrated to Europe . The most gifted for the trade of these Moroccans then took over Belsunce and widened the concept of informal trade hubs , first to other cities in France , Béziers , Nîmes , Perpignan , and Valence first , then elsewhere in Europe , Germany , Belgium , and Italy especially , for the initial use of the Muslim-Maghrebi populations established in the region , or coming to Europe , where their tribal-clan ties attracted them .
Thus , from “ Belsunce ” to the confines of the Sahel , a gigantic and informal “ pipeline ” has been built up almost invisibly — many natives of Marseille living in other parts of the city would be very surprised to learn that such a system exists — from the Mediterranean coast of France , irrigates all the Maghreb and the Sahel through the “ troubled areas ” of Perthus-La Junquera , then that of Andalusia around Algeciras , then through Oujda in Morocco ( on the border with Algeria ), then Oran , from there all the “ bled ” and beyond to the confines of the Sahara .
And even , from now on , in most of West Africa . From the 1990s , “ Belsunce ” acquired a Sahelian dimension , with the arrival of the “ river people ” ( Senegal ), mainly Senegalese , but also Malians and Mauritanians . “ Ants ,” then traders and notables , come to “ Belsunce ” and extend the “ catchment area ” of the district to the borders of West Africa . Let us insist , the flows going up and down this “ Route du Trabendo ” concern at the same time and all together individuals , goods , and legal or illegal products :
• The licit side concerns the mode of smuggling all objects of everyday life — first and foremost cigarettes — without paying duties or taxes , a traffic of use tolerated by the regimes in place as safety valves .
• The illicit side affects the very nature of the goods and objects sold : narcotics , fake medicines , counterfeit spare parts — the whole field of dangerous counterfeits .
The Geopolitics of “ Globalization from Below ”
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Globalization from below operates beneath the States , in their flaws , their shortcomings . Cultural and not only economic , its actors are unexpected — ants of international trade weaving the web of innumera-
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