Ministère de la Justice. Administration de la Sûreté publique. Police des étrangers. Dossiers généraux 2e série (Versement 2003)

The Foreign Police is a former institution of the Belgian State that emerged as an autonomous body after the First World War. Its missions were a component of the Public Security Administration’s work. As soon as independence was achieved, the Belgian State entrusted the Public Security Administration with monitoring foreigners on its territory. In the 19th century, these surveillance efforts were mainly aimed at preventing foreigners from engaging in subversive political activities that could jeopardise Belgium's diplomatic relations. The Public Security Administration meticulously carried out this task after peace with the Netherlands in 1839. Monitoring foreigners was ensured through the maintenance of an administrative database, which contained files on each foreigner residing in Belgium. This file included reports from local government administrations. As part of its mission to guarantee public order, the Public Security Administration prohibited foreigners convicted of criminal offences from continuing to reside in Belgium after serving their sentences. Foreigners who did not respect the obligation of political discretion could also be expelled. However, those running the Public Security Administration had grander ambitions, wishing to transform it into a political police force. The development of an autonomous political police force was in flagrant contradiction with 19th century Belgian liberalism. This political framework, which was aimed at guaranteeing liberal freedoms, focused on the protection of the individual from the State through extensive decentralisation and close parliamentary control. However, the Public Security Administration, as a supervisory body aimed at guaranteeing public order, required a high degree of autonomy. This centralised state institution, which was exempt from parliamentary control, was an anomaly. Parliament therefore granted this institution only a limited number of staff and restricted resources. Therefore, in order to perform its tasks, the Public Security Administration was highly dependent on local administrations that jealously defended their autonomy. In the 19th century, the administration was more or less a paper tiger. The social tensions that punctuated the last quarter of the 19th century provided an ideal opportunity to strengthen the administration’s role. But due to overzealous execution in certain police cases, this opportunity was wasted. In fact, the Public Security had relinquish some of its power, notably in the aftermath of the Pourbaix affair (1889). In 1890, it lost its exceptional institutional position. Its jurisdiction subsequently fell under the political responsibility of the Minister of Justice. However, as part of the social defence strategy of the homogeneous Catholic governments during the decade preceding the First World War, the administration was given a leading role in the fight against "subversive and criminal elements". Those considered "criminal" were not only those people who had actually been convicted of a crime. Thus, foreigners unable to find work or the long-term unemployed, itinerant groups and sex workers, even people viewed as living alternative sexual lives, were eventually subjected to the whims of the Public Safety Administration. They were considered "vagrants", "gypsies" and "depraved" and therefore expelled as dangerous foreigners. This history of the Foreign Police in the 19th century is amply documented in the first instalment of the general files of the Foreign Police held by the National Archives. The individual files of the Public Security Administration, held in part by the same institution, also offer a fascinating snapshot of how the foreign population was administered and they testify to the Public Security Administration’s particular interests. The 20th century archives still preserve traces of the administration’s actions over the course of the previous century. The classification of gypsies and sex workers as "dangerous foreigners" persisted into the first half of the 20th century. Administrative files of this type were not closed in 1914 but continued until far into the 1920s. As a small organisation, the operation of the Public Security Administration in the 20th century remained highly dependent on other services, but its power increased considerably as time went on. The evolving political landscape, including the development and professionalisation of all law enforcement agencies, strengthened the public authorities' control over social life. At the same time, this movement went hand in hand with a centralising trend, to the detriment of the Communal Police and to the benefit of the Gendarmerie. The strengthening of the Gendarmerie from 1886 onwards and the creation of the Judicial Police in 1919 led to an increasing rationalisation of the police apparatus. This centralisation operation enabled the Public Security Administration to have more effective instruments at its disposal in order to enforce its policies. In the middle of the 20th century, the judiciary, including the Council of State, emerged as an increasingly significant counterweight and reduced the power of the Foreign Police to some extent. The culmination of the latter's dynamism was reached around the time of the two world wars. The Public Security Administration was then mobilised to call enemy nationals to order. The legal protection of foreigners was temporarily abolished during the occupation of the country. Even Belgians, whose treason had led to their being stripped of Belgian nationality, fell under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Police. After the First World War, the Public Security Administration had to adapt to a new era. With democratisation, many organisations that had been previously considered subversive were integrated into the political and social regime. The Public Security Administration had to curtail its ambitions for becoming a political police force. The regime change linked to the end of the Great War made the administration of the foreign population much more complex. International mistrust, heightened by the restoration of border controls and, above all, the democratisation of the Belgian State, led to the redefinition and essentially the extension of the notion of "undesirable foreigners". When developing foreign policy, private interests hitherto ignored had to be taken into account, particularly those interests of “inferior” social groups. This democratisation of the State was reflected in the many documents (including a rich collection of press clippings) contained in the second instalment of the Foreign Police's general files. These documents come from various social organisations interested in influencing foreign policy. Due to the need to reconcile a wide range of interests in foreign policy, the Public Security Administration no longer only considered foreigners as political actors, but also as economic actors. The scrutiny brought to bear on foreign economic actors offers a unique perspective on the emerging economic and labour policies of the Belgian state. Work permits (1930), mobile work permits (1935) and business permits (1946) were the formal expressions of these new challenges, but precursors of these documents can be found in the early 1920s. The Foreign Police had thus overseen increasingly complex policies and were constantly assigned new objectives aimed at guaranteeing public order. The new ambitions weighed increasingly heavily on the policy agenda with the explosive increase of immigration to Belgium, a consequence of labour needs in heavy industry. This migration of labour forces can be accurately tracked in this archive. A particular feature of the corporate welfare state of the 1950s is the decision to allow labour migration was made within the context of traditional tripartite advisory bodies. The subsequent recruitment process and the integration of foreigners into the sectors assigned to them in the labour market are also fully documented in the second instalment of the general files. This state intervention gradually took shape during the inter-war period, as the public authorities shared this new responsibility with social partners. Highly regulated labour migration ensured a predominantly male migratory flow. Labour migration related to domestic services, which was not insignificant in terms of quantity, is not often mentioned in this archive, which illustrates the less sensitive nature of female labour migration. State interventionism was more marked in immigration and the settlement of foreigners in 20th century Belgium. The 19th century policy towards foreigners was further diversified in the first half of the 20th century with the migration, expulsion and naturalisation policy. Several categories of foreigners were exempt from the restrictions imposed on immigrants. In particular, a specific policy was developed for cross-border workers as well as people who had been forced to leave their country involuntarily who received special treatment as refugees. A specific policy was also implemented for journalists, diplomats, students and foreign artists. The criminality of foreigners also changed in character with the emergence of a new category of offences aimed at punishing attempts to circumvent restrictive migration policies (illegal stay and/or work, falsified documents, etc.). Growing international entanglement ¬–which became apparent mainly in the 1960s – appears, in an embryonic phase, in the second instalment of the general files. The Foreign Police had maintained contacts with foreign authorities and international organisations. The policy towards foreigners in Belgium was incorporated into a framework of international migration. Given the increasing complexity of the Public Security Administration’s missions, specialisation and rationalisation were required. In 1929, the Public Security Administration was restructured. The third general directorate of the Ministry of Justice was divided into three directorates: the Public Security Administration itself, the Foreign Police, and a third directorate. At the head of the Public Security Administration, an administrator assisted by a deputy administrator was appointed. At the head of each directorate was a director. At the same time, the number of employees increased, a trend that would continue in the 1930s and 1950s. These three directorates (which later became five) operated independently of each other, which was reflected in the limited information on the political activities of foreigners contained in the second instalment of the general files. The sub-divided operation of the Public Security Administration was also reflected in the opening of separate personal files of foreigners by the first Directorate. The creation of these S.E. files (State Security) on politically active foreigners means that the Foreign Police’s files which date back to the 20th century are sometimes less extensive than those of the 19th century, because they now only contain documents relating to the administrative management of the foreign population. This fonds is, above all, a source of information on the role of the State in Belgian society, although its wealth goes far beyond this particular aspect of Belgium's political and social history. All the activities in which foreigners were involved on Belgian territory are mentioned. This ranges from religious orders to circuses and musicians, as well as (universal) exhibitions. The establishment of foreign companies was also the responsibility of the Foreign Police. Moreover, a multitude of subjects concerning foreigners such as the carrying of weapons, gambling, education, etc. were dealt with by this administration. With such a wide range of themes, these archives are relevant to political and diplomatic history as well as Belgium's cultural, social and economic history. For decades, no one really showed an interest in the 19th century Public Security Administration archives that had been transferred to the National Archives in 1965. Only cases involving the political activities of refugees attracted the interest of historians. It was not until the 1990s that a shift in research interests took place and these archives became an essential source for answering new questions about the past. Given the subject matter of recent master and doctoral theses, it would appear that these archives are now the object of intense scrutiny. This historical research is now contributing to a rehabilitation of Belgium's history as an immigrant society. The second instalment of the general files of the Foreign Police will undoubtedly generate considerable interest among historians as well. These sources of documentation can contribute to a “mainstreaming” of the history of immigration. Specialists in political, cultural, social and economic history will thus be able to integrate immigration into their research as a constituent element of Belgian society in the 20th century. These archives are only the tip of the iceberg: within this immigrant society, countless archival creators have left their mark. All that remains for historians to do is to begin researching: this archival collection offers them an excellent starting point. The documents in this fonds are written in: French, Dutch, German. The highly contemporary nature of certain documents and the presence of personal data raise a fundamental question about opening up the fonds in its entirety. In the case of Foreign Police’s individual files held by the State Archives, the conditions for consultation are governed by the legal opinion issued on 13 September 1996 and 11 September 1997 by the Commission for the Protection of Privacy and by the Royal Decree of 13 January 2001 implementing the Act of 8 December 1992 on the protection of privacy with regard to the processing of personal data. In other words, the files are freely accessible if they were created more than a hundred years ago. More recent files are subject to the prior written authorisation of the Archivist General of the Kingdom. Applying such provisions in the case of the general files of the Foreign Police would prove to be far too cumbersome and unduly restrictive in practice because they would deprive researchers or individuals of access to the vast majority of general files which do not contain personal data. Personal data" means data relating to persons who may still be alive at present; more precisely "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (...); an identifiable person is deemed to be a person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more elements specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity". As a precautionary measure, this definition has been applied broadly in the case of the Foreign Police's general files that were transferred to the State Archives in 2003. Therefore, any file containing data that could have led to the identification of a person who may have still been alive was closed for consultation. These files mainly refer to people whose date of birth was after 1920 or post-war documents mentioning names of persons. To summarise, the general files of the Foreign Police (second transfer in 2003) are freely available for consultation, with the notable exception of those containing personal data. The latter (323 files out of a total of 1,468) have been identified in the inventory with an asterisk placed directly to the right of the item codes.