Genèse et configuration d’une catégorie de l’action publique : les « mineurs isolés étrangers » en France (1993-2002)

This article details the rise in visibility of a public category currently termed “unaccompanied foreign minors”. Our research on the origins of this phenomenon led us to investigate a key period (1993-2002) of institutionalisation of practices concerning this group of children and adolescents coming from overseas or abroad without legal representation. Commencing with the study of written sources, (non-governmental, governmental, media based), we have looked at the successive formats of the problematisation of the phenomena before the category of ’unaccompanied foreign minors’ became the official and settled definition, with the underlying implication, that it falls within the cadre of child protection.