I realised last Christmas that the pandemic has changed what it means to be an immigrant

We are three generations of women living in three different countries and separated by two stretches of sea, and I had not given it a lot of thought until 2020, writes Marie Le Conte

Will emigration feel as seamless after the pandemic as it did beforehand? (Simon Calder)

It has taken me 20 minutes to begin writing this column. I usually get started straight away, but, as it turns out, it is hard to write if your mother is in the same room and asks you a mundane question every other minute. Would I like another coffee? No, thank you. Do I have any Moroccan cumin left at home, and if not, would I like to take some with me? Actually, yes I would – and so on.

If it sounds like I’m complaining, rest assured that I am not; I would usually be annoyed by the complete and utter lack of privacy that comes with spending Christmas at home, but this year is different. This year’s Christmas is remarkable, because it feels, and is, normal. I flew from London to France on 23 December, and by 29 December, I will be desperate to jump on a flight back.

It is the Christmas I had every year for 10 years as an emigrant, until last year when I did not. On 23 December 2020, I was in London, and on 29 December, I was in London, and for those days in between, I had all the privacy anyone could ever possibly want. It was odd and sad.

I am here in France this year, but everything is not normal quite yet. My mother and I were meant to go to Morocco next month to see her family – our family – but the country has closed its borders to both Britain and France, so it will have to wait, again. I have not seen my grandmother since 2019, and I do not know when I will see her again.

We are three generations of women living in three different countries, and separated by two stretches of sea, and I had not given it a lot of thought until 2020. I grew up between France and Morocco; then, at 17, I did what my mother had done before me, and moved north across the water. If I have a daughter one day, I assume she will feel compelled to move to Norway, or Iceland.

Or perhaps she won’t. Will emigration feel as seamless after the pandemic as it did beforehand? I had never thought of Britain as especially far or foreign until I found myself unable to leave its borders. For months I was paralysed by the fear that something would happen to me, or my parents, or my grandparents, or my brother, and that we could not be together for it.

Suddenly, the freedom I had always associated with the act of leaving the nest, and building a life for myself elsewhere, had given way to a claustrophobia from which I couldn’t escape. I had made a decision to leave, and suddenly that decision had a weight, and came with uneasy consequences.

I have no intention to move back to France. I have made a life for myself in London, and it is my home. Still, I wonder what will happen to all the potential emigrants out there; the people who have always thought that, one day, they might well escape to another country altogether.

Did the pandemic make them happy they had stayed close to their homes after all? Did they watch us, the people who had already made the jump, and secretly think that they had made the right decision? Choosing to emigrate now must feel so much more intimidating than it did even a few years ago. Who would do it?

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It worries me, because moving to England is the best decision I ever made, and my mother’s move to France is the reason I exist, which also strikes me as a positive. Discovering a new country, a new culture, a new language and a new way of life is rewarding in a way few other things are. I really hope that as many people as possible get to experience it.

Countries are also made richer by welcoming people who were born elsewhere, and it worries me that so many nations retreated into themselves when the pandemic hit. It should be one of our goals for 2022 to ensure that the world once again feels like a place worth exploring. So much joy and potential will be lost for ever otherwise.