The Express: In his interview at L’Express, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe questions the Franco-Algerian agreement on immigration, believing that it offered Algerian nationals advantages “more favorable than common law”. What do you denounce, why?
Phillip Brown: In its position paper, which is inspired by a note from Fondapol [NDLR : Fondation pour l’innovation politique, un think tank libéral] signed by former ambassador Xavier Driencourt, it offers a very erroneous reading of the existing agreement. It is wrong to say that it is more favorable than the common law for foreigners. Already, for students: those from Algeria can only work part-time, when the others can work 964 hours a year [60 % d’un temps complet], freely alongside their studies. It is therefore one less right. The 1968 agreement also excludes taking into account the allowance for disabled adults for the calculation of the income conditions giving rise to the right to family reunification, contrary to ordinary law. The main favorable point in this treaty is that an Algerian immigrant living in France for more than three years can benefit from a residence card for ten years, against five for a common law foreigner. The big deal… If Edouard Philippe denounces this agreement, it is not out of a desire to control flows, but to point the finger at a particular population to flatter a population that remembers a time gone by with melancholy…
That’s to say ?
Would Edouard Philippe be nostalgic for French Algeria? This is what he suggests by questioning this agreement. The way he formulates things makes no sense from a legal point of view, shows that the Algerians would be favored and carries some hints aimed specifically at them, recalling the dark hours of the Algerian war.
Nevertheless, this agreement is a real totem. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika even declared in 2012: “History has created rights for the benefit of Algerians recognized by the agreement of December 27, 1968. The visa is in this context the price to be paid by France for the colonization of the country. ‘Algeria for one hundred and thirty-two years.
Let us already remember that the agreement does not change anything on the question of visas and that France, on this subject, respects European rules, including for Algerian visas. If the Algerians are so attached to this agreement, it is because it enshrines the special relationship between our two countries. A relationship that can be observed daily in our respective societies. We don’t live together for a hundred and thirty-two years without insignificant consequences. It is no coincidence that 25% of foreign doctors in France are Algerian. It is no coincidence that 9 million French people have a link with this country, whether they are children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of immigrants, conscripts or black feet. Algeria was French before Nice and Savoy were. There is a linked human community, almost intimate, and rich too. To renounce this agreement is to renounce this wealth.
“Education and work, these are the two main drivers of the discourse of the left in the debate on immigration”
Among the other totems that the right wants to reform, there is the right of asylum. Is it necessary?
The strength of France has been to welcome those persecuted for freedom in their country, to the point of making it its DNA and enshrining this right in its Constitution. However, there is a backlog of asylum procedures which leads to a very high number of appeals and a very high failure rate. The real question is not to know if there are too many, but rather to better manage this subject, administratively in particular. In France, the procedures are too long. Let us rather take inspiration from what our German neighbors are doing on this subject, who have entrusted the entire processing of asylum applications, monitoring and accommodation of applicants to a single agency.
The left has been silent, if not uneasy, for so many years on the issue of immigration. For what ?
Unfortunately, the left has been silent on many subjects, whether public services, salaries, but also secularism and the defense of the Republic. The social-liberal drift that we have known has left these cardinal subjects – the banner of the left! – on the far right. On immigration, as on all that, she was not there…
So what will you say this summer when the text on immigration will be discussed in the National Assembly?
When you ask the French about the reasons why they say there are too many foreigners in France, they all, or almost all, answer that immigrants are poorly integrated. What is reproached to foreigners also applies to the rest of French society in 2023, so poorly integrated. It is the “French archipelago” described by Jérôme Fourquet: the secession of the elites, the geographical segmentation between metropolis and rural areas, the rich against the poor, etc. This observation unfortunately applies to immigrants, too. We must therefore invent a more powerful integration policy in the face of the increase in flows, and in particular future climate migrants.
In the past, integration was done through work: the Algerian, Tunisian or whatever worker arrived in France, found a job in the factory, joined a union, a workers’ mutual, and so on. He was housed in a workers’ estate, with other Frenchmen. It no longer exists. Today, the foreign worker in the cleaning services or in the catering industry is installed in a ghetto, with other foreigners only, he is not socially protected, he is chained to fixed-term contracts or temporary work and is poorly paid . Integration also passed through the school, but today it has become a difficult, if not impossible, mission for teachers who must face the challenges of inclusive education with ever fewer resources. Education and work, these are the two main drivers of the discourse of the left, in any case of the Socialist Party, in this debate on immigration which is coming, and we must go there frankly.
The PS will therefore vote for the measure of regularization of undocumented workers wanted by the government?
Yes, because it is necessary to regularize by work, and this in all sectors! A foreigner who works must have the right to stay for the duration of his contract. But this is not enough: it is also necessary to improve the path of newcomers to employment and housing, and that learning the French language begins as soon as the application for residence is submitted, not afterwards. Moreover, the French lessons given by the Ofii [l’Office français de l’immigration et de l’intégration] today are very inefficient… It’s not me who says this, but the Ofii itself. Half of the trainers admit in a recent survey that the training is not suitable for illiterates who are over-represented among asylum seekers. We must also impose a policy of geographical integration. The metropolises are the most attractive but no longer have the capacity to accommodate as many people. We need a deghettoization plan to bring newcomers to the countryside to restore breath, labor and public services. This must go hand in hand with maintaining the rural habitat. A national rural renovation agency, with low-rent housing that could accommodate immigrants.
You are elected in Eure, a department besieged by the National Rally, where the left has disappeared for years. Do your constituents talk to you a lot about immigration?
They speak to me first of purchasing power, then of medical deserts and public services, of “assistantship” also and, finally, in fourth position, of immigration. This subject is often linked to the question of disintegrating authority, of the effectiveness of our justice. In short, public services… The subject of immigration is intimately linked.