France's Stance: Much Too Right For Its Own Good?

The Lower House of the French parliament cleared the Immigration Bill on the 19th of September. The bill aims to make knowledge of the French language and proof of solvency mandatory and includes voluntary DNA testing by immigrants to be enforced legally. This step has sparked controversy not only in Paris but created ripples of discomfort all over Europe and Africa.

In the recent past, legislations like this, curbing immigrant rights and marring the freedom of residence for certain ethnic groups, have been much debated in European governments. Germany in 2004 and Greece in 2001 have both tried to control their burgeoning foreign populations, often, as in the case of the latter, with disgraceful provisions.

France, at least in this past century, has provided asylum to millions and has sought to fashion itself as a sort of continental counterpart to the United States, with its diverse, multi-religious cosmopolises being held up as icons of cultural harmony and integration. As it turns out, there is trouble in paradise. As long ago as 1997, France had engaged in argument with the European Union about their anti-immigrant proposals. Back then, the National Front, France’s far-right party had suggested measures like seeking permission from mayors to allow foreign arrivals and informing the police on the departure of the same. Recoiling in the wake of the outrage, the government hastily withdrew the bill.

These ultra-conservative sympathies of France have come back to haunt them a decade later, with UMP leader and president Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing administration seeking to deliver on all those promised he’d made during his presidential campaign – to expel up to 25,000 immigrants from France by 2010, a claim that some see as nothing but fanciful and disingenuous political lobbying on the part of Mr. Sarkozy (himself the son of Hungarian émigrés), as he disregards both his nation’s real, ground-level population predicaments and panders to the closet bigotry in his cabinet. Mr. Sarkozy’s extremist sensibilities have often been the subject of debate, most prominently in July this year, when he condemned Africa as immune to, indeed, incapable of progress and proceeded to inject a thinly veiled denial of any exploitation of Africa on France’s part at all. Even during his two terms as Interior Minister, Mr. Sarkozy endeavoured to tighten police authority on the streets of the country and cemented his status as a somewhat autocratic, oppressive chief. In 2006, he had called for integrated immigration reforms to be drafted and accepted by all EU nations, presumably as a direct attack on perpetrators of the 2005 riots in Paris, which he had hinted as having been caused by illegal immigrants. This is shockingly similar to the National Front’s 1997 party-line that it was immigrants who were snatching employment away from natives. Interestingly enough, it was Mr. Sarkozy who, in his bid to lessen the gap between the Church and State, had called for government subsidies to mosques to allow Muslims to be further assimilated into French society, assisted in the establishment of a national Muslim council and also expressed his support for affirmative action for minorities. This makes for an interesting case of contradictory political dynamics within the current government. One wonders whether Mr. Sarkozy was simply trying to appease those immigrants that he so fervently wishes to oust, to garner votes for his eventual presidency or whether he genuinely believes that non-Christians and non-Caucasians deserve a place in the French Republic. Expediency or xenophobia? Where does his allegiance lie?

While civil rights have not always been on his agenda, many experts claim that Mr. Sarkozy isn’t the only one worried about the effects of mass immigration on French society. While it is true that modern France was founded on the much vaunted principles of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ (a knowledge of which all applicants for entry into the country must now possess), it is also true that all developed nations, recovering from their 20th century post-colonial guilt trip, feel that their penance has been long drawn out – it is time they became selective about the sort of aliens they allowed within their walls. And after all, it is easy to preach tolerance when one doesn’t have to practise it. It is only in the past 20 years or so that the influx of customs absolutely dissimilar to mainstream Gallic traditions has seeped in. As a sidebar, EU’s Justice Commissioner, Franco Frattini’s announcement to grant blue cards (analogous to the USA’s green cards) is a propellant to examining and devising new European migration legal modalities. Skilled workers with proper backgrounds are always welcome but the tide of poverty-stricken, disenfranchised and destitute civilians without any discernable talent to contribute to the society or economy, are being shut out. With this law, however, a one-size-fits-all strategy of discrimination and deportation is being put into force. While opinion polls show that the majority are in favour of this, these are the same people who voted for a Christian democracy touting government in the first place. Should all suffer because of a few? And isn’t the DNA testing clause overtly racist? Genetic profiling is a potent fear among minorities all over the world and this sort of blatant requirement in no way qualifies France’s claim to egalitarianism.

Finally, it’s important that the Left speak out with vehemence against this wave of reactionary resentment against men and women who have helped to build a nation. France must take an unequivocal stand – will it abide by its centuries old model of freedom or succumb to the pressures of the Western world’s newly recovered conceit?