Yan Marchal 27 m ·
As many of you know by now, I have been denied entry to Thailand and sent back to France, merely because the powers in place do not like what I post on social media. I may be the first known case of deportation from Thailand without any conviction or visa overstay.
Moving forward:
- Business: to the extent that my team is still on board with me, we keep going on. We were all working from home anyway. I just need to make arrangements to give legal powers to my Thai company to somebody else, so it can run administratively without me being there.
- Blacklist status: we will petition the immigration to obtain the file they have on me and get it removed. But it is going to be a long process.
- Children: obviously I will continue to cover the cost of their studies. They are not far from being grown up anyway.
I would like to thank everybody who expressed support, privately or publicly. In particular, let me express a deep gratitude to Pravit Rojanaphruk and Natalie Bergman, who went out of their ways to try and help me.
To the far-right figures (and non-figures) who expressed shadenfreude, keep it up! You bring me inspiration. Obviously, being deported to a place where Thai speech laws do not apply will not prevent me from posting more contents. I will do so for as long as I enjoy doing it and there is an audience who likes it.
I enjoyed the two decades I spent in Thailand a lot, but now is the time for another stage of my life, which I am looking forward to. The world is still wide and full of opportunities.
Note: the Thai Airways staff was super nice. They knew who I am and told it to the French police who, in turn, handled me nicely, and chatted with me about it. It is much more tolerable to be handled like a remanded criminal when you can feel like those doing it are your allies. My only objection is to the fact that they won't serve alcohol on board to deportees: why oh why?