L’illégalité de la migration. Discours sur la norme

This paper aims to analyze the conflict between norm and system in the context of irregular migration, interpreting it as a cultural clash between the arriving and origin semiospheres of the migrant. Although the norm of irregular migration is part of the system, it is nowadays subject to a new legislative framework that defines it in increasingly restrictive terms. Through a comparative analysis of Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on Refugees and the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, the essay examines the spatial-legal redefinition of the migrant’s place of origin and the transformation of the polemical-contractual structure among the actors involved. Finally, it highlights how the space of sub-contrariety, structured around the categories of internal vs external and regular vs irregular, becomes a zone of translation and negotiation between norm and system.