In what sense, French immigration policy known as “ chosen »She influented in the past year ? The collective That France Deciphers the language of the ministry in the Besson era, and puts recent developments in their European context: that of a generalized alignment on the least hospital rules of hospitality.
The recent publication of the second volume of That France marks a promise held. The authors, constituted as a collective after the election of Nicolas Sarkozy to the Presidency of the Republic, a collective which has expanded since it now has twenty-nine contributors, deliver the second volume of their annual chronicle of the immigration policy government. The investigation is just as meticulous, precise, and strives to cover all the aspects concerned by the migratory question, at the French but also European level. Structured, like the previous edition, around personal stories of migrants, portraits of prefects – in two parts entitled “ stories “Between which the” descriptions Of the various forms taken by the application or the diversion of the rules on which the migrant populations depend -, the work finally opens on the “ questions »Of its authors. Collective work is, once again, impressive and serious. Its authors, who do not wish to indignant as to demonstrate, analyze the migration policy of the government in all of its realities and its mechanisms, especially discursive.
Sixty-six stories retrace, on one page each, the individual and family journeys of immigrant foreigners in France, in which humiliation disputes it to the absurdity of procedures, and most often give rise to a disillusionment: “ That’s not France “Concludes a young Moroccan whose father fought in the French ranks. The chronicle, which took over from the first volume from May 2008, is marked by the responsibility of a new Minister of Immigration of the Sarkozy government in January 2009. One of the major inflections produced by Eric Besson is to be identified, according to the authors, in the order of speech: the celebration of French hospitality, the virtues of his “ crossbreeding “, Breaks with the previous rhetorics, to better stigmatize the perversion induced by the existence of clandestine networks, which are played out in the good faith of migrants considered to be their victims, and” fraudsters Who divert the resources offered by France in terms of asylum. Networks allowing immigration, now designated by the term “ sectors ” of “ smugglers “Or” traffickers “, However, are more complex than made to believe in the media initiatives of” dismantling “Mafias and others” jungles ». A development on the identity of these intermediaries of migration redeployed the complexity of links, in particular solidarity, which are formed during the journey and on arrival, and which are not all, moreover, currency. Because even the “ caregivers », That is to say all those who give their support to immigrants out of conviction,” by passion or by ideology In the words of the government – whether these individuals are isolated or engaged in associations – are considered to be the stakeholder in this system, with their defending bodies. By the same way, their initiatives appear emptied of their political sense, being reduced to a naive and dupe complicity, in a traffic which does not say its name.
The authors also recall that the violence suffered by migrants is not only the result of “ smugglers », And that illegal treatments and in particular sexual violence is also the result of the policies of the various countries crossed. Another innovation from the Besson ministry, the invention of “ Gray wedding “, Which brings suspicion inside the binational couple. More generally, it is on the invention of the concept of “ families suffered “That the communication policy of immigration is partly based. When the expulsion becomes synonymous with protection, the rhetorical tour de force is played. The candidate who, on the evening of his election to the Presidency of the Republic, opened the doors of France to all persecuted women in the world, has thus set up a system where young girls threatened with excision must be protected Accept to separate from their mothers, to which the status of refugee does not extend.
The actors of the “ civil society »Multiply to intervene in the complex field of migrants’ rights: undocumented workers are thus at the center of a campaign against the” racketeering Social contributions, carried out not only by associations, but also by local collectives and unions. On the side of state institutions, on the other hand, interlocutors are becoming scarce: the objective of modernizing public policies has not spared the ministry, however created at the same time as the general revision of public policies (RGPP). Already underlined in the first volume, the “ discretion of prefects “, Whose action is described for each of them in a second part of” stories During those of expelled migrants, now extends to the naturalization procedure. As part of an objective of simplifying procedures, the double level of file instruction is deleted. However, the elimination of the central level has the consequence of unequal access but also increasingly limited to nationality.
In addition, the legal framework for migration policy is not the same throughout the republican territory. It is the merit of this collective to recall once again how much the overseas is a separate case and a field of experimentation. The authors give him a place here through the example of Guyana. In this French territory bordering Brazil and Surinam, expulsions are facilitated, and discouraged remedies: a third of the foreign population is thus distant each year, beyond the Moroni and Oyapock rivers, around which families have nevertheless structured For decades, playing with borders. Threatened with detention under conditions denounced by various associations, these migrants return, however, stubbornly, and resume their way of life “ transgressive “Pending a future distance.
One of the axes developed by Minister Eric Besson relates to the third part of his powers, the “ Solidarity development ». It mainly results in the signing of bilateral readmission agreements with the countries of which migrants emerge, giving in this sense an example followed by the rest of Europe. The community level is also particularly documented in this volume, which presents a “ Europe of low harmonies In migration matters: the trend is for the alignment of countries with the hardest hospitality rules, on the part of the very people who until then had avoided immigration a “ issue Like Spain, while others, like Italy, adopt increasingly radical xenophobic rhetorics. In the absence of a common economic policy in these times of threat to the single currency, it is the immigration policies that seem to give most of its content to the European Union. Spinning the entrepreneurial metaphor, the authors evoke the development of “ subcontractors “Immigration, country of departure and transit countries, which have the double advantage of being” less required to be scrupulous – but likely to be disowned ». The management of migrant populations would reveal fully, explain the authors in a final development, the contemporary form taken by the “ government neoliberalism ” : there “ phobic democracy “, The one who channels the fears of her citizens around the invention of” issue Immigration, while putting on the discourse of the defense of human rights, by rejecting the attempts at amalgamation with the regimes of the interwar period.
The second volume of this collective enterprise is therefore used to analyze, to assess, but also to understand the springs of French migratory policies, as they are also inserted in a European system, and more broadly in a global context marked by The economic crisis, one of the corollaries of which is the lack of the main part of the main ailments to which their populations are exposed. If the last chapters in particular make the effort to exceed the French case, it is however the latter which is at the center of the most stimulating analyzes. The approach of the authors, who is based on the publication of these annals published by the association, has since expanded with the constitution of a mixed group including around twenty parliamentarians, responsible for extending it on a more immediately land policy, by producing an audit of government migration policy. Let us hope that the publication of these annals of migration policy continues to found this important and rigorous enterprise, whatever the form taken by the action of That France in political and media space.