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This article studies a special type of deportation hearings and its status in French administrative courts. Until a 2006 legislative reform, this proceeding was the only one in French administrative litigation giving rise to hearings where all the parties were present, including: the claimants, their counsel, and the representatives of the immigration agency. Each party could set out its case and cross-examine the other party. The paper analyzes the way in which administrative judges deal with this irruption of orality in their work, traditionally dominated by a written procedure, and the meaning they give to the hearing in (re)defining their …