“After the National Assembly’s motion to reject, is this bill necessary? »

2023-12-16 12:00:18

The President of the Republic and the Minister of the Interior have chosen to submit for public confrontation, for more than a year already, a draft law on immigration, taking the heavy risk of dividing and tensing a little more about the country. The day after a vote on a motion to reject the text in the National Assembly, the question that arises is the following: is this bill necessary?

Re-elected without a majority in Parliament, the head of the executive should first have asked himself what he could change in immigration policy without passing a law. And what would he have discovered? That many of the problems facing France can be resolved outside the law and can be resolved in complete democratic transparency.

What are they ? Foreigners in a legal situation face such an administrative wall that, due to lack of appointments at the prefecture, they are placed in an irregular situation. Those who have always been in this situation and who have received obligations to leave French territory (OQTF) issued by the Ministry of the Interior do not leave, due to lack of cooperation with the countries of origin or with the neighboring countries of the France, members of the European Union.

Also read the editorial of “Le Monde”: “Immigration” bill: lessons from a crash

Those who have worked in our shops or businesses for years are unable to get regularized, as the law allows. Because in certain professions, qualified or not, companies cannot today develop, or even survive, without a new foreign workforce.

Involve other ministries

How can we ensure that foreigners in France without family ties, without reason to request asylum or without a possible place on the job market do not come there, and that those who have these reasons to come can be there? well received?

To respond, we must first realize what has been lost sight of for more than ten years: migration and asylum policy cannot be the responsibility, as has been the case since 2011, of the Minister of Foreign Affairs alone. interior, delivering tens of thousands of OQTFs, most often not executed. It is as much about work as it is about foreign affairs, but also about education and research, health or housing, and must involve all these ministries concerned.

Diplomacy first. With the Schengen and Dublin agreements, France should not see irregular migrants arriving from Italy, Spain or Germany. Better managing and cooperating with our neighbors on European agreements, so that they can respect them, must be a priority. Better cooperation with the countries of the South so that they take back their irregular nationals, this means not reducing, but maintaining the visas of those who make regular return trips between France and their country, and resuming the reception of foreign students, who will help economic development at home and here.

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