2023-11-07 12:00:14
Since the issue of immigration burst into the French public debate four decades ago, the gap between the political game it fuels and the reality of the societal and economic consequences of this essentially international phenomenon has never been reduced. . If the Senate began, Monday, November 6, the examination of the thirtieth legislative reform on the subject since 1980, and the second under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron, it is because the effectiveness of the new measures praised each time is is revealed to be doubtful. It is also that immigration, a theme whose complexity is easily convertible into passions, has revealed itself as a formidable electoral lever.
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The bill submitted to Parliament is no exception to the rule. This text, like many of its predecessors, is presented as ” balance “, between the need to better control flows and that of facilitating the integration of foreigners present on French soil. On the repressive side, measures intended to facilitate forced removals; on the liberal side, a right to regularization for undocumented immigrants employed in trades « a tension ». We must believe that this balance corresponds to public expectations, since, survey after survey, a majority of people questioned, from both the right and the left, approve of it.
On the political spectrum, the picture is very different. A year after its presentation and after several postponements, the bill is certainly intended to respond to voters’ expectations for better control of immigration, in an atmosphere weighed down both by the repetition of Islamist attacks and by the progression of the extreme right.
Also read the column: Article reserved for our subscribers “The immigration bill, this mutating political object revealing the constraints, contradictions and impasses of the moment”
But it is also the stakes of a game of lying poker where the ambitions of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the alarming race initiated by the Les Républicains (LR) party, in pursuit of the National Rally ( RN), and the inability of the left to maintain a clear course on the subject. There is no question, neither for LR nor for the left, of letting MM. Darmanin and Macron score a point on immigration. In the presidential movement lacking a majority, everything is done to poach right-wing elected officials.
Dangerous concessions
These political transactions risk favoring demagoguery rather than rationality, and favoring dangerous concessions. Including Mr. Macron’s explosive last-minute proposal to broaden the scope of the referendum to immigration issues, as demanded by LR and the RN. As for the dismantling of state medical aid, which covers undocumented immigrants, it could have serious health consequences. The restriction on the application of the right to acquire French nationality introduced in the Senate by LR would create a new obstacle to the integration of children of immigrants.
Also read the report: Article reserved for our subscribers State medical aid: in Saint-Denis, “huge diagnostic delays among patients who do not have health coverage”
The difficult question of immigration deserves better than such haggling. It is urgent for the government to erase the impression of powerlessness it gives on immigration. This requires a global plan involving, beyond the Minister of the Interior, all the administrations concerned and allowing both the integration of workers and the expulsion of truly dangerous foreigners. Rather than a permanent debate without vision, rather than a hysterical right and an inaudible left, the country needs clarity and pedagogy. Otherwise, everyone knows who risks winning the bet at the end of the game. You just have to hear the silence of Marine Le Pen to remember it.
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