The precarious status of migrants labours in Tunisia is visible. Sub-Saharan migrants are over-represented in low paid service jobs such as assistant waiters, bathroom cleaners, or street and public space cleaners. Of the 53,000 foreigners that live in Tunisia, 12,000 are from sub-Saharan Africa[1]. Yet institutionally, these migrants are nowhere.

The presence of sub-Saharan Africans in the Maghreb countries is not a recent development. Since the advent of “Fortress Europe”, the imposition of individual visas on the countries of the South and the implementation of intra-African restrictions, sub-Saharan migration to the countries of the north of the continent is a growing phenomenon. In Tunisia, this