It’s a global reality, a human rights and social issue, and, in France, a political instrument. Immigration issues require an open, rational and, if possible, peaceful debate. While France has elected 89 lawmakers from a far-right party, the Rassemblement National, that makes banning of foreigners the central axis of its political project and seeks to stir up fear of a so-called “migratory submersion,” not since 1945 has the country been in such urgent need of discussion, explanation and clarity on this increasingly eruptive subject.
The debate held in the Assemblée Nationale on Tuesday, December 6, was not only legitimate but essential. It heralds the strong tensions that the immigration bill prepared by the government for the beginning of 2023 is likely to raise, but it also shows the capacity of the national representation to directly address a subject that is on the public’s minds and to highlight its complexity in the face of lies and reductive slogans.
Although immigration is not one of the French people’s primary concerns, according to polls, the radicalization of opinions on the subject is hardly in doubt. While a large majority of people questioned in polls believe that “there are too many immigrants in France” and that the identity issue has been amply played out, the factual arguments – France is an old country of immigration, and ranks 12th among European countries in terms of the proportion of immigrants in its population – are worth repeating.
Criticized by the right for its “impotence” in controlling migratory flows and by the left for its “inhumanity,” the government says it is preparing a law combining “firmness and humanity,” President Emmanuel Macron said, using a diptych often used in the past. The text combines the promise of greater firmness in deporting illegal aliens, intended to appeal to the right, with the promise of easier regularization for undocumented workers in sectors suffering from a labor shortage, intended to appeal to the left.
Caught between a far right that agitates the fiction of a closed France and left-wing La France Insoumise who pretend that the borders can remain wide open, the government feels justified in acting to remedy an anomaly on the one hand (the massive non-enforcement of laws governing deportations) and a hypocrisy on the other (the employment on building sites and in restaurant kitchens, in particular, of foreigners who are exploited because they do not have their papers).
But preparing yet another bill on immigration without the previous one from 2018 having been evaluated, and claiming to improve the enforcement of obligations to leave the territory, while issuing more and more of them, leaves room for doubt about the effectiveness of the government’s approach. Dealing with immigration issues is a sensitive matter and certainly requires regular actions in response to the demands of citizens and changes in society. But it also requires courageous statements involving truth and humanity.
If the announced regularization of workers is to be welcomed, it is necessary to confirm that the foreigners whose presence will be legalized in this way cannot see their situation depend on the fluctuations of the economy, and also to give a status to the immigrants who can neither be regularized nor deported today. And it is important to remember the futility of hatred and speeches about closing borders, in the face of rising geopolitical and climatic tensions that set migrants in motion.
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