THE misery of the world washed up on the doorstep of the French president's daughter earlier this month. Claude Chirac wasn't home when the African women arrived to deliver a letter. The gendarmes guarding the building in the rue du Bac did not appreciate the gesture; they called in reinforcements who arrested the whole group including their spokeswoman, Madjiguene Cisse.

Eleven months have passed since 314 illegal immigrants, known as sans papiers, stole the initiative in their long battle with French authorities by occupying a church in Paris. Evacuated by police they moved four times in three months, settling at the end of June in a second church, Saint Bernard, where 10 men began a hunger strike on July 5th. They received support from French intellectuals, including Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of the late president, theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine, actress Emmanuette Beart and left wing Bishop Jacques Gaittot.

On August 23rd, close to a thousand riot police arrived to expel the squatters. With a gesture that shocked television viewers across the country, police hacked through the wooden church door with an axe. The immigrants were dragged out kicking and screaming. Eighteen were sent back to Africa; lot have received temporary residence papers and 195 others including their leaders Cisse and Ababacar Diop - are still illegal aliens. They are from Mali, the Central African Republic, Zaire, Senegal, Nigeria, Algeria, Guinea and Haiti.

Caught between Jean Marie Le Pen's right wing, anti immigrant National Front and human rights, activists, the French government wishes the sans papiers would just go away. But neither the carrot nor the stick have silenced the group's fearless leaders, Cisse and Diop, both of whom are Senegalese. Anonymous callers make up death threats against them. They are trailed by French intelligence officers. Cisse received a two month suspended sentence and has been banned from French territory for three years. The authorities could expel her, but because of her notoriety they simply arrest and release her every few weeks.

Ababacar Diop, who is more diplomatic than the volatile Marxist Cisse, was offered residence papers for himself and his family if he would just shut up. "I could never accept such a deal," he says. "We'll continue until all the sans papiers of the Eglise Saint Bernard obtain residence papers."

Last month, an emissary from President Chirac's office began secret negotiations with Diop. At the request of the Elysee and of his own group he refused Yo disc cuss the talks. Meanwhile, a new French law on immigration is making conditions even tougher: French citizens must now report the arrival and departure of foreigners staying in their homes.

To the annoyance of the authorities, 40 French lawyers defend the sans papiers for free. Because illegal aliens cannot have bank accounts, left wing trade unions hold accounts in trust for the group, which receives more than £1,000 a month in donations. The group also sells posters, badges and reggae CDs.

Their leader, Ababacar Didp (27), arrived in Paris in 1988. He saved the money he earned as a cleaner for computer courses, which started him on a meteoric rise. For years, France really was the land of promise. Diop often earned £1,600 a month, helping with computer pricing and inventory in companies that included the high fashion designer Christian Dior. Dressed smartly in a suit and tie, French police never asked to see his papers. He, brought his fiancee Astou from Senegal. They married and had a baby girl, Fatou, who is now two years old. Then on March 18th, 1996, the day his application for residence papers was refused, Diop saw a television news report on the occupation of a church by the sans papiers. He joined them the next day.

The day of the women's arrest shoes were piled at the door of Diop's "office", a dormitory like room with mattresses covering the floor and clothes hanging from window latches. The battery charger for his probable cell phone sat on a shelf holding dishes, instant coffee and rolls of toilet paper. Young African men sat on the mattresses. One held Diop's baby daughter white her father called journalists to alert them of the women's arrest. They claim the group's slogan, "des papiers pour tous" (papers for everyone) were Fatou's first words. The men decided to go to the police commissariat of the 14th arrondissement, where the women were being held.

Between phone calls, Diop explained the predicament of the sans papiers. "We don't leave our countries with a happy heart," he said. "We come here because we can't live decently any more countries have been pillaged, pillaged, pitlaged .. ." Diop changed tone as he updated a journalist, over the telephone: "They were arrested this morning, in front of Claude Chirac's house. They wrote a letter, to remind her that they too have children, for her to give a letter to her daddy..."

The men gathered in the courtyard. "We're taking the bus," Diop shouted as he led the way down the street in Paris's wholesale fur district. An African in a knit cap ran after him. "Don't go," he cried. "They'll arrest us all." Diop laughed: "You stay and mind the house."

Since their expulsion from the Eglise Saint Bernard, Diop has testified before the French National Assembly and the Brussets Human Rights Commission. French newspapers dubbed him; "the chameleon" for his ability to adapt to any environment. "It's true that I change depending on dealing with," he said.

"But deep down I'm always myself. I'm still a sans papier."

As the bus lurched across Paris, French matrons kept an uneasy eye on the 18 African men standing in the aisle. "We want to live here in dignity," Diop continued. Although his wife was among the arrested women, he was most worried about Madjiguene Cisse. "They could take her straight to the airport. She's the only woman in the group who has a political background, who's not afraid to talk. We can't replace her."

He is soft spoken, but sometimes the anger boils over. "When they deport the sans papiers they put chloroform on cotton wool over their mouths so they lose consciousness. They put handcuffs on their wrists and ankles, and they tie to the other passengers on the aircraft; they claim they are rapists.. They did this to several of the hunger strikers from Saint Bernard."

Diop remembers his friend, Amara Fofana, who died of liver, cancer aggravated by his hunger' strike at the Eglise Saint Bernard. "He died after getting his papers. He got his papers and he couldn't even use them." Diop's book, In the Skin of a Sans Papiers, was published last month. He is writing another book: One Century of Immigration, From 1895 to Today, and has established a web site on the Internet for the san spapiers.

The men were greeted outside the commissariat by a French lawyer, one of their sympathisers, who had just been released. The African women had been transferred in a police van to the prefecture on the Ile de la Cite. From opposite sides of the boulevard, the Africans and several dozen policemen stared at each other with deep mistrust. Finally, the immigrants turned and headed towards the Metro, for the trip back to the fur district. The women were released that night. Until the next time.

A spokesman at the French Ministry of the Interior said: "As far as we are concerned, these people are on French territory illegally. Either they came in illegally or they came in with visas and stayed beyond the expiry date. If there is an identity check and they bare found to be in an illegal situation they may be sent back to their country. This is the law."

Commenting on the raid on the Eglise Saint Bernard last August, the Interior Minister Jean Louis Debre said: "The time had come to apply the law, firmly, but not heartlessly, with the concern for humanity which the government wishes to show.

Debre also said: "We respect the law. The return a foreigner in an illegal situation to his home country involves a more complex procedure (in France) than anywhere else in the world."