“We call for a collective start before the passage of the immigration bill in the National Assembly”

2023-11-15 07:10:06

Stop! For several years, we have witnessed a political and media offensive against the presence of foreign people in our country. This offensive is unprecedented in its scale and violence, and, by multiplying the amalgamations and fantasized representations, feeds racism and xenophobia, while dangerously dividing our society.

Also read our editorial: Immigration, a drifting bill

A new level was reached with the introduction of the bill to control immigration in public session in the Senate. In a completely uninhibited manner, the Les Républicains senators [LR] have increased the excesses and caricatured comments on immigration and exiles. And this with the sometimes active guarantee of the government.

Most of the amendments voted on in the Senate only aim to exclude and make the journey of immigrants through the territory even more difficult, by considering them illegitimate by nature. Thus, the same political leaders who denounce the lack of integration of migrants are those who do everything possible to prevent it, through a battery of regressive measures, each more astonishing than the last: by tightening the conditions of access a residence permit; by eliminating state medical aid, making it even more difficult for foreigners in an irregular situation to access basic care; by making the system of regularization through work almost inoperative; by removing the right to family benefits, to the personalized autonomy allowance, to several benefits concerning people with disabilities or the enforceable right to housing for foreigners residing in France for less than five years (compared to six months currently hui); by reinstating the offense of illegal residence or by removing the automatic acquisition of nationality at 18 years of age for people born in France to foreign parents.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers “Immigration” law: the Senate adopts the “simplification” of asylum application procedures and litigation in foreigners’ rights

Added to the amendments of the LR group are those of the government, which slipped into the text brutal measures not provided for in the initial bill. They constitute significant setbacks for the rights of foreigners and the right to asylum: administrative detention of asylum seekers, restriction of the scope of family reunification for beneficiaries of international protection, decline in the intervention of the court judge. freedoms of four days (instead of two) for people in detention and limitation of the possibilities of release…

The boundaries of the unacceptable

Let us emphasize that many other senators, but in fact in the minority, nevertheless tried to save what could be saved by offering a reasonable and humanist speech. We are grateful to them.

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