How France’s immigration debate masks social reality

Migration is a highly controversial and controversial issue in France. In the last 20 years, 12 laws aimed at bringing a more restrictive approach to immigration have been introduced – and each survey still continues to show that the French want more strict border control. Although this is no longer a big target country in France. Although 10.7% of its population was born in foreigners, the annual immigration rate to France (the ratio between immigrants and the total population of the country) is 0.37% in 2023 and is among the lowest in OECD countries. It is three times lower than countries such as Belgium (1.06%), Canada (1.06%) or Germany (1.37%).

The more closely examination of the visible polarization around migration shows that it is largely due to a strategic political position to transform the issue of immigration from a practical policy issue to a symbolic war area. While political parties struggle to protect their voters, they use migration to activate left-right division and produce real social division instead of reflecting.

Left-Red Opposition An illusion

At first glance, France’s political range seems to be properly divided into immigration, while defending left human concerns, emphasizing the right control and security. This dual presentation cannot achieve the complexity of public and policy facts.

First, it is relatively low among the primary concerns of immigrant French citizens. Surveys show that economic issues (especially purchasing power), health system pressures and climate change results are dominated by the public. Inside IPSOS-CESE SURVEY Migration for issues with public concerns is in the sixth position and only 18% of the participants listed their immigration as primary concerns. It usually emerges as a secondary concern that is more affected by the scope of media and political campaigns more than personal experiences. This suggests that the political emphasis on immigration can be disproportionately with the real importance of citizens’ daily lives.

Secondly, annual research on racism has made consistent progress in more social understanding and tolerance. . Longitudinal tolerance indexPublished by the National Human Rights Advisory Commission (CNCDH), since 1990, tolerance has increased to tolerance and younger generations have been exposed to foreign cultures that exhibit the highest levels.

Finally, contrary to fiery political discourse, French public opinion shows an important consensus on key immigration. The poll shows that majority of political commitment supports the targeted migration to address labor shortages in certain sectors from health services to agriculture. Accordingly Think about Terra Nova, 58% of the population is selected or not in favor of labor migration, rising to 70% among immigrants. Similarly, there is a wide harmony in the need to reduce irregular migration and increase the efficiency of asylum procedures.

Most citizens support qualified migration programs, family reunification within reasonable limits, and human protection for refugees. Even in contentious issues such as integration requirements, voting raises more agreements than disagreement, and most French citizens support language education and civil education programs rather than being completely opposed to immigration.

The disconnection between the political rhetoric intensity and the priorities of the people shows that the debate of immigration serves a political agenda beyond dealing with real public concerns. It provides a suitable arena for political competition and identity formation and allows parties to differentiate themselves with symbolic reasons while avoiding more complex economic and social policy debates.

Historical evolution of immigration governance

Understanding France’s current migration policy requires examining how migration governance has developed since the beginning of the twentieth century. From the 1920s to the post -war period, migration was primarily governed by employers and business associations hired foreign workers with minimum political intervention based on economic needs. Although this system was flawed, migration continued as a technical and economic issue rather than a political issue.

II. After World War II, non -governmental organizations became increasingly role in immigrant integration and advocacy. Organizations such as Cimade (Comité Inter-Mouvements Auprès des évacus) created a parallel support system that completed official policies to help refugees and immigrants. This period found that migration was ruled by political debates with limited political debates with a combination of economic pragmatism and human solidarity.

However, in the 1980s, there was a significant turning point with the gradual state centralization of immigration policy and the rise of the extreme right national front (FN). Immigration has shifted from a central political issue from being an economic and humanitarian concern. This transformation coincided with the search for economic restructuring, urban challenges and the search for new political identities after industrial France.

The consequences of this change were deep. The vocal defenders of migration in order to meet their workforce needs, preferred to manage their labor needs quietly and withdrew from public opinion discussions to a great extent. The left is increasingly fragmented, human principles, economic facts and election concerns about the emergence that permits. In the meantime, non -governmental organizations find marginalized in a political environment that gives priority to positioning themselves on practical solutions.

Security -oriented gap

This institutional transformation has created a political gap that they successfully filled by by fraising the migration of right -wing and far -right parties through security and cultural protection lenses. Without strong voices advocating economic pragmatism or human balance, discussion has shifted towards restrictive policies that are justified by security concerns and identity policies.

The artificial nature of France’s immigration division is becoming clear in comparing political rhetoric policy results and the public. Despite decades of fiery debates, French migration levels remain relatively stable. Net migration In 2021, in 2021, it reached 159,000 people against 163,000 in 2006. In practice, the policy makers fully approved their developed cooperation with a limited integration policy with a limited integration policy with cooperation and language courses and language courses and language courses and language courses and civil education in order to secure deportation, more strict visa requirements.

On average, with the legislative reform every two years, in addition to the continuous parliamentary debates of stories containing immigrants with the scope of daily media, anti -immigration discourses have become dominant and are constantly repeated.

This political madness on migration has done more than relieving the people’s concerns to re-activate and direct the left-right compartment. The last example of this Last petition initiated by Philippe de Villiers“We are changing the population… Lifestyle is a extreme right pundite who demands the organization of a referendum on immigration to be… We are changing civilization”.

The petition was largely supported by conservative media organizations such as CNNEWS, European 1 and Valeurs Actuelles. He collected 1.9 million signatures, but this number is controversial because the same person (or bot) was published on a secure website that allows more than one signature. All signatures had to automatically accept the contact information used by some conservative media organizations to allow them to send bulletins and other commercial materials. The effort was another marketing operation to mobilize supporters.

France’s experience shows how much institutions and political strategies prevent the effective management of a complex social issue. This left France with a extremely divided left-right warfare, and led to a social breakage that has overcome reality in immigration-this is an underlyingly underlying issue.

Publish initially Creative Commons with 360info.