Almost forty years ago, in 1984, a politician who was not even on the left, the centrist Bernard Stasi, published a book, Immigration, an opportunity for France. “The mere fact of asking this question will appear, in the eyes of many, as a provocation, he writes. I know well that the presence of many immigrants on the national territory is experienced with difficulty, sometimes dramatically by many of our compatriots. And I understand their concerns and their anxieties. My ambition is therefore first of all to help the French to approach this problem with serenity, by dismissing as far as possible passions, prejudices and overly idealistic visions.” Today, the divisions have jumped: according to an Ipsos survey carried out just before the last presidential election, 60% of respondents feel that there are too many foreigners in France. The poll reveals something else, which has nothing to do with a detail: none of the candidates, whether it be Marine Le Pen or Emmanuel Macron, Eric Zemmour or Valérie Pécresse, none arouses on this the confidence of a majority of French people.
Immigration has become the symbol of public inefficiency, with an acronym as an emblem: the famous OQTF, these obligations to leave French territory so rarely followed up. These new demands of the population come up head-on against a form of impotence that all governments, right-wing and left-wing, have difficulty in curbing. As a result, officials are tempted by verbal one-upmanship. Emmanuel Macron tries to break down the lexical lines. He who, from his first five-year term, often confided in private “I don’t want to be fooled on the regal”, has often hit his own friends. In November 2020, he said: “We would be ineffective in saying that there is not a part of terrorism which can be linked to a form of immigration.” The historical macronists do not believe their ears. In April 2021, in the Figaro, he affirms that it is necessary “to welcome less perhaps, but to welcome better”. The phrase has been carefully thought out. On August 16, 2021, Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech after the fall of Kabul: “We must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows.” Eavesdropping cries.
The words are there, but not the actions, the incredible imbroglio around the Darmanin-Dussopt bill is there to prove it. Suddenly, doubt wins people’s minds: what if speech was only a means of concealing the impossibility of acting; and if it underlined the evil more than it made it disappear. Let us take the example of the link between immigration and delinquency. The speech, long absolute taboo, is now taken up within the government by the inevitable Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin. On July 29, 2022, in an interview with Progress, he declares: “35% of acts of delinquency are committed in the Lyon metropolitan area by foreigners.” This is the first time that the statistics have been published and accepted in this way. And after ?
On the right, the embarrassment that seized some has long been forgotten. “There is a link between immigration and delinquency”, insists Eric Ciotti on BFM on Sunday. “The migratory chaos leads to insecurity”, adds Bruno Retailleau in the JDD. But she also knows that she cannot be satisfied with verbal promises – she “parorates”, accuses the president of the Law Commission Sacha Houlié. So she draws two heavy weapons: the modification of the Constitution, even if it means putting France out of step with the European Union; the use of a referendum.
The serenity conducive to reasonable public debate is vanishing day by day. A subject illustrates this discrepancy. Emmanuel Macron often tells the same story in small groups when he returns from his travels: half the time, in a café or restaurant, a dishwasher or a waiter comes to ask him for regularization. “You know, the very French pie is made by people who are not very French”, launched one day in his office in Beauvau Gérald Darmanin to Marine Le Pen. But considering the regularization of immigrants exercising “a profession in tension” now causes an irremediable fracture: LR makes the article of law contained in the government bill a casus belli. Between flexing its muscles and flexing its muscles, the political class has lost all sense of nuance on immigration.