War in Ukraine: “the fear of missiles” or a life “without a husband”, the difficult choice of refugee women in France

“Since the start of the conflict, around 180,000 Ukrainians have passed through France“, said this Monday on franceinfo Didier Leschi, director of the French Office for Immigration and Integration, who considers “around 100,000, maybe 110,000“the number of Ukrainians present on French territory.”Returns to the country began as soon as the Russians were moved away from kyiv” and they “intensified for several months“, notes Didier Leschi. This is the case for two women that franceinfo met.

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Ania, 36, thus arrived in France four days after the Russian invasion, in February 2022. She crossed the Ukrainian-Polish border on foot, before boarding a plane with her son and mother. She was thinking of staying two, three weeks maximum. “We’ve been here for a year”sighs the young woman.

After being hosted by a host family, Ania now lives in a small studio and is thinking of returning home to Ukraine, as 20,000 Ukrainian nationals living in France have already done: “My husband remained in Ukraine and this distance and this separation, it is not easy”.

“Even if there is this risk of missiles, of bombardments, there are things that are more valuable to me.”

Ania, Ukrainian refugee in France for a year

at franceinfo

“France helped me”

The threat of missiles against family reunions, such is the difficult choice of those who have fled the war. Marta, she chose the second option. She returned home after spending four months in France: “I had to make this decision because living without a husband, without the father of my children, it was not good. France and the French helped me to calm down, to have a normal life, to think about how to go on living.”

France has therefore been a refuge, a vital and life-saving shelter for these two women who prefer to live with their families in their country.