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Over the last few decades, Europe has become an increasingly inaccessible fortress for migrants. Confinement has become the central instrument for managing foreign nationals within the framework of border control. The trivialization of confinement stems from the logic of tightening up migration policies that stigmatize and discriminate against those subject to them. In France, the waiting zone has been the essential tool for border detention for over 30 years. Although it is the source of numerous human rights violations and criminalizes foreign nationals, the waiting zone was nevertheless rolled out at European level as part of the Pact on Migration and Asylum in 2024. The aim of this article is to understand what is at stake in the expansion of the “French-style” border detention regime to the European Union, by analyzing the waiting zone regime and the consequences it has on the people who fall victim to it.