Welcoming foreigners? Which foreigners are we talking about here? Illegal workers, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants…? We have to recognise that our views are influenced by bills introduced by the French government, which, when conveyed to us by the French media become real burning social issues.

Despite our interest in debating these issues, welcoming foreigners at Ciarus is not a ‘social’ exercise or an act of charity, similar to those performed by the Protestant Social Centre or the Cimade (whose website bears the slogan ‘because there are no foreigners on this earth’); just to give a few examples.
At the international Ciarus youth hostel, we welcome visitors with different values, different customs and different practices in order to allow them to share in our European, French and Alsatian culture.

This ‘passion for welcoming others’ is conveyed by the French State Secretariat for Tourism through their ‘Welcome to France’ campaign. In fact, France is the leading country for tourism in the world: 78 million tourists visited France in 2006.
Ciarus is all about providing a professional welcome, expressing ourselves in a language that foreigners understand and knowing how to meet their expectations at the same time as giving them an insight into our culture. It is admittedly a challenge, but it is above all a state of mind: as far as the diverse range of cultural backgrounds of the staff here at Ciarus is concerned, this is something we at Ciarus live by on a daily basis.
Follow the links below to find a summary of the issues debated at the last internal workers session at Ciarus, which was held on 7 and 17 January 2007.
http://fr.franceguide.com/special/bienvenue-en-france/
http://www.cimade.org/
www.csp.semis.org/