France battles with itself over what to do about immigration

There is a commonly held view among British people that France over the last 20 years or so has tried to solve its immigration problem by funnelling as many new arrivals as possible towards Calais and the UK. 

So let me be clear. This is nonsense. It is just plain wrong. Last year, France issued more than 320,000 residence permits to immigrants – a record number, up 17 per cent on the figure for 2021. And the number of permits issued this year is expected to be significantly higher. 

These statistics, moreover, relate only to those immigrants who have been processed and settled. The total figure for the number of arrivals, legal and illegal, including those who choose to remain under the radar, could easily come to more like half a million. 

Earlier this year, the Macron government finally faced up to the problem and produced an all-encompassing Immigration Bill that it said would be passed within a hundred days. But then last month, the bill was withdrawn, or “paused,” out of the fear that the resulting uproar in Parliament and the streets would somehow merge with the protests attending the rise in the retirement age from 62 to 64. 

The bill, which aims to “control immigration while improving integration,” would require those seeking the right to remain to speak French and to submit to both fingerprinting and regular reviews of their circumstances. It would also make it easier to deport those whose applications were rejected, nothwithstanding the fact that, in most cases, the countries of origin show no willingness to cooperate. 

When first published, in February, the bill was attacked by human rights organisations and liberally-minded deputies and led to street demonstrations by immigrant groups and their supporters in a number of French cities. The likelihood is that protests would grow if it looked as if the measure was going to become law, taken up by the unions as a way – ironically – of integrating immigrants into the broader anti-government movement. 

Thus the decision to pause the process, with only a vague promise that it will be restored to the government’s agenda in the autumn.    

Leading the demand for tough new legislation is the Far Right, in the form of the National Rally of Marine Le Pen, supported by a large majority of the centre-right Republicans. But some of Macron’s own Renaissance faction are known to share the Right’s concerns. A significant minority within the Left, especially the Far Left, is equally insistent that something must be done. Trade union members may like to think of themselves as socialists or liberals, but when it comes to immigration, most have made it clear that charity begins at home. They are worried about their jobs and the employment prospects for their children and grandchildren, both of which are impacted by immigration. 

Underpinning this widely-shared resentment is the fact that asylum-seekers, most of them Muslims, are frequently in the news for committing acts of violence. This morning, a 31-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested, charged with stabbing six people, including four children, in a park in Annecy, close to the Swiss border. One adult and two of the children are in serious condition in hospital.  

The suspect was originally granted refugee status in Sweden, but decided to move to France, where he hoped to be granted asylum. The French press has had a field day.

In recent years, leaving to one side the Islamist terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of hundreds of people in Paris and Nice, there has been a steady stream of incidents, up to and including murder, involving migrants. Obviously, those responsible for the attacks make up only a tiny minority of migrants, but the public mood in France has shifted in response, obliging the government to come up with a workable solution to cut the numbers of immigrants and, if possible, to clamp down on individuals thought to be a risk to the public. 

The immigration bill was always something of a hybrid. While bloviating about a determination to cut numbers and to return those who have been refused asylum to their countries of origin, it also made clear that France needed skilled immigrants, including doctors, scientists and technicians, if it was to achieve its targets for economic growth. African governments have let it be known that they resent this approach, which allows ordinary arrivals to be deported while welcoming in professionals whose training has been provided at no cost to France. 

Voters – assuming they were ever to be asked – might well respond that a one-fits-all bill in fact serves neither purpose. According to a newly published poll, some 70 per cent of the electorate, excluding don’t-knows, believes there are too many immigrants in France. The same percentage would, of course, complain that there are not enough doctors and nurses or care home workers, just as they have insisted that 62, not 64, is the appropriate, if unaffordable, age at which to retire and pick up their pension. 

In the case of the small boats filled with asylum-seekers bound for England, the influx from France is overwhelmingly from countries in the Sahel and West Africa, as well as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and – weirdly – Albania – without either papers or permits. While it may be true that the French have not strained their sinews to prevent the exodus, they have, in fact, detained many thousands of UK-bound illegals over the last five years, to whom they then have to cater in the knowledge that they have no intention of remaining in France. Under a recently signed deal, British police and immigration officers work directly with their French counterparts in the Pas de Calais, tasked with preventing departures and, crucially, identifying the people-smugglers responsible for the trade. 

But the core problem is the same throughout Europe. Germany last year issued 540,000 residence permits. In Italy, a key arrivals point for would-be migrants from Africa and the Middle East, close to 11 per cent of the population were either born abroad or are the children of immigrants. Spain, in 1998, had an immigrant population totalling 1.6 per cent of the population. By 2020, the proportion of immigrants, including EU and British citizens, had risen to 15.23 percent. 

So let us not pretend that there is some kind of EU-wide conspiracy to solve its immigration crisis by relocating it to the UK. To borrow from David Cameron, we are all in this together.  

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