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Michaël Neuman

Michaël Neuman

Director of studies at Crash / Médecins sans Frontières, Michaël Neuman graduated in Contemporary History and International Relations (University Paris-I). He joined Médecins sans Frontières in 1999 and has worked both on the ground (Balkans, Sudan, Caucasus, West Africa) and in headquarters (New York, Paris as deputy director responsible for programmes). He has also carried out research on issues of immigration and geopolitics. He is co-editor of "Humanitarian negotiations Revealed, the MSF experience" (London: Hurst and Co, 2011). He is also the co-editor of "Saving lives and staying alive. Humanitarian Security in the Age of Risk Management" (London: Hurst and Co, 2016).

Two MSF workers in the Sahel region. MSF Analysis

Should we discriminate in order to act? Profiling: a necessary but debated practice

01/28/2021 Françoise Duroch Michaël Neuman

In this article for the Humanitarian Practice Network, head of the Research Unit on Humanitarian Stakes and Practices (UREPH) for MSF Geneva Françoise Duroch and Crash director of studies Michaël Neuman discuss the implications and reasons behind the growing practice of staff profiling for MSF.

In October 2020, MSF organised a workshop in Dakar on staff profiling in operations in the Sahel. Profiling involves the selection of staff based on non-professional criteria, including nationality, skin colour, gender and religion. As such, it raises a number of ethical and practical concerns. As a result of profiling, US nationals have not been deployed in MSF operations in Colombia because of the risk of kidnapping, and Chadians and Rwandans have been excluded in the Central African Republic and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo respectively, because of regional conflicts. The use of profiling has increased in recent years in West Africa, as the threat of kidnapping of Westerners by radical jihadist groups has intensified.

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Treatment of COVID-19 patients in a sports centre in Mexico. MSF/Arlette Blanco Review

Covid-19 Reading List - Part 4

11/20/2020 Michaël Neuman

After a few months of respite the coronavirus epidemic has resumed its spread. With the second wave becoming a reality in many European countries, the Crash team decided to share some recent reading on the biomedical, political and social aspects of the pandemic in an attempt to shed some light on this tragic Season 2. As in previous editions, some articles are in English and some in French, and they are taken from both mainstream and specialist sources.

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Camp de rétention de Dar El Jebel Michaël Neuman / MSF Opinion

Libya: the forgotten ones

03/02/2020 Michaël Neuman

Michaël Neuman spent ten days in Libya with Médecins Sans Frontières teams working in detention centres for migrants. From his stay, he brings back the following impressions that illustrate the gloomy situation of the people who are held there, for months or years, and the even more difficult situation of all those subject to kidnapping and torture.

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Condition of migrants in Paris Antoine Kremer/MSF Analysis

Médecins Sans Frontières-France: tensions arising from the “Migration” projects

05/07/2019 Michaël Neuman

In the summer of 2015, the French section of Médecins Sans Frontières started aid projects for migrant populations in Greece and France. The launch of these operations was the occasion for lively discussions within the association, both in terms of public positioning (how to justify an intervention in a rich country and not get lost in "political" territory?), and in terms of revising our operating methods, knowing that the primary needs of migrants were not primarily medical. Some people then recalled the association's militant practices in the 1990s, which were sometimes considered as abuses. By retracing the history of the French Mission, Michaël Neuman seeks to understand, with regard to the migration issue, the complex articulation between operational constraints, political positioning and militant practices.  

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Aquarius Forced To End Operations Ikram N'gadi Op-ed

Sea Search and Rescue Operations Outlawed

Le Monde
12/12/2018 Michaël Neuman Mego Terzian

Dont acte, la politique de harcèlement judiciaire, administratif, politique aura eu raison de l’Aquarius, déployé entre 2015 et le milieu de l’année 2018 en mer Méditerranée.
Tribune de Mego Terzian (Médecin, président de Médecins sans frontières) et Michaël Neuman (Directeur d'études au CRASH de MSF) publiée le 07 décembre 2018 dans Le Monde.

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opération de secours Andrew McConnell/Panos Pictures Op-ed

NGOs are not in collusion with smugglers

07/10/2018 Michaël Neuman Thierry Allafort-Duverger

Humanitarian aid organisations carrying out rescues at sea were made into the accomplices of human traffickers. This accusation is as absurd as it is unacceptable. Not only do rescue operations at sea save people from drowning, but they evacuate people in situations of immediate danger in Libya, MSF recalls.

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Un groupe de 150 Syriens traverse la frontière entre la Grèce et la Macédoine. Alessandro Penso Op-ed

Consultations on asylum and immigration bill: MSF denounces ‘‘a fool’s game”

01/12/2018 Michaël Neuman

Abstaining from participation in a meeting taking place this coming Thursday, MSF feels that "government officials have listened politely at best and shown condescension and contempt at worst in response to positions expressed in meetings, op-ed pieces published in the press and questions asked in meetings by NGOs" and do not hide "a policy that is sliding into harsh repression".

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Le camp de La Linière, à Grande Synthe, en Juillet 2016 Charles Habib Analysis

Sheltering, hosting or receiving refugees: the unresolved ambiguities of the La Linière refugee camp

07/05/2017 Michaël Neuman Franck Esnée

Following the dismantlement of the Basroch camp in Grande-Synthe and the resettlement of refugees in the new La Linière camp, in the spring 2016, Michaël Neuman and Franck Esnée wanted to focus their analysis and story on the “camp” – as an object –, its nature and management. This article was originally published in Alternatives Humanitaires #5, in July 2017. 

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