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Second-class citizens

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04/2006 		 

Second-class citizens

Immigration has been back on the political agenda in France for some time. The protests which broke out last November in troubled suburbs throughout the country have given the debate a new edge. Two draft laws were presented in parliament early this year, one on France’s immigration policy and the second on enhancing equal opportunities. Nevertheless, the government looks helpless in view of the social problems. Development issues hardly play a role in public debate.


[ By Nathalie Gillet ]

According to France’s Ministry of the Interior, approximately 10,000 cars, 200 public buildings and numerous shops were destroyed during the riots in November. 130 persons were injured, including police officers, doctors and firemen. The government had to invoke the 1955 emergency law passed during the Algerian War of independence to quell the uprising, a procedure of high symbolic relevance.

For weeks, France and the rest of the world watched as hordes of youths of Arab and African descent demolished their neighbours’ cars in desolate suburbs. Anarchy and violence are the norm throughout the year in the areas concerned. This time, however, the French had to face up to reality: we are not a brotherly homogenous nation which gives everyone equal opportunities. Unemployment, black markets and violence mark everyday life in environments hardly fit for human habitation. The social gulf is now being felt as a threat to the nation’s cohesion. Statistics show that the repressive strategy Nicolas Sarkozy, the home minister, has had little success to date.

Hasty and poorly-funded housing programmes created large numbers of uniform tower blocks in the suburbs in the 1960s. As the French middle-classes have generally long since found more appealing accommodation, immigrants from North and sub-Saharan Africa are the main residents in these depressing Cités. The people who live here are of low status and socially excluded. There are officially 630 such “quartiers sensibles” (“sensitive neighbourhoods”). Unemployment rates here are between 30 and 50%. The national average is only 10% in France.

Accordingly, the events of November provided an opportunity to reconsider the issue of immigration. The conservative government had already been working on legal reforms in the months leading up to the troubles, and two bills were presented in parliament a few weeks ago. The key aim is to reverse basic immigration trends.


Selective immigration

In 2005, 167,600 people moved to France. This number is roughly the average of the last ten years. The share of those seeking work has fallen, however, and now makes up only five percent. Relatives or asylum seekers make up the other 95%. There is now to be an end to the “zero immigration” strategy for job applicants, as has been pursued for 30 years. The country needs qualified personnel, after all. In any case, France was never able to prevent illegal immigration.

The government is therefore setting new parameters. It will open France’s borders for labour migration with certain quotas, tighten up “family reunion” migration, and introduce an obligation to integrate for anyone who takes up permanent residence in France. For the first time, France is stating publicly who it wants and who it does not. It wants highly-qualified workers, staff for jobs that cannot be filled, so far, and clever students. And it wants to limit the number of relatives joining ordinary workers.

If the plan is implemented, migrant employees will acquire varying rights. Less-qualified workers for economic sectors which require many hands would receive a residence permit for one year, which can be extended according to the length of the employment contract. The residence permit would expire once the contract came to an end. Family members could follow only after 18 months (previously 12 months), and before doing so, it would have to be proved that there is adequate accommodation and income. In contrast, well-qualified employees would be permitted to stay for three years and it would be made easier for them to bring along family members. Foreigners with a degree from a French university could also stay for longer and look for work.

Another new feature is that migrants who wish to take up permanent residence must prove that they are prepared to integrate into French society. They would have to sign a “welcome and integration contract” which requires them to learn the French language and to respect French values (including the secular state and gender equality).

The government also regards marriages of French citizens with foreigners abroad as a problem. Currently 34,000 people each year get their right of residence in this way, twice as many as five years ago. Family reunions (about 20,000 people annually) are currently the second source of legal immigration behind marriages. In future, marriage to a French partner would no longer give an automatic right to residence in France. It will also be investigated whether these are Ôsham’ marriages. To get a residence card, marriages will have to have lasted at least three years (previously two) and the integration contract adhered to. Migrants will only be able to claim citizenship after four years of married life (previously two).

The proposed reforms are meeting with criticism. Olivier Brachet of the Forum des Réfugiés says: “The law will make people’s lives more complicated, but it will not reduce migration pressure.” Human rights organisations emphasise immigrants’ insecurity and consider that living together with their families is a stabilising factor. “Immigrants will lose their right to residency if they split from their partners or are fired by their employers,” complains Jean Paul Dubois of the French Human Rights League. “This is a regular production system for Ôsans papiers’.” The French use that term (literally “without papers”) for illegal immigrants. Greater scope for bureaucratic decision-making is also criticised. Brachet complains of “ prefects acting like colonial governors in migration issues.”

The organisation GISTI (Groupe d’information et de soutien des immigrés) denounces the utilitarian approach and speaks of “disposable immigration”. Socialists and communists oppose quotas which would help to exploit poor nations’ elites. However, the opposition in parliament is not proposing any clear alternative to the conservative government’s policy.

In the meantime, the government is also putting pressure on the countries of origin. “Our development efforts are meant to have a considerable influence on immigration trends,” says Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy. “We want to focus our aid on projects which keep populations where they are.” The Ministry of the Interior similarly wants countries which receive French development assistance to prevent migration as well as the transit of potential migrants. In other respects, the interests of the countries of origin do not play any particular role in the current debate in France.


Diverging opportunities

Under the “jus soli” legislation, everyone born in France can chose French citizenship at the age of 16, provided they have lived here for five years. But those who grow up in the troubled Cités have fewer chances than others, for example, on the job market. They are discriminated against, tacitly and sometimes probably subconsciously. Even though they hold French passports, these people are regarded as foreigners. Some of them are beginning to distance themselves from “the French”.

What lessons has the government learned from the November riots? Apparently not many, as far as housing problems are concerned. It has been a legal requirement for a long time for every municipality to have a 20% share of homes in subsidised housing projects for disadvantaged people. But many mayors refuse to comply. They fear that meeting the quota would affect the value of other real estate. Furthermore, the quota does not guarantee social diversity. According to SOS-Racisme, an anti-racist movement, migrants of the same ethnic origin are continually and knowingly placed in the same apartment buildings, in breach of the official regulations.

Sociologist Olivier No‘l says that, so far, the government has failed to come up with a comprehensive policy for equal opportunity. In his view, the bill recently introduced into parliament does not live up to its name because its hotchpotch of measures does not amount to a coherent strategy which might do justice to the task.

One of the bill’s provisions is that 14 year olds may take up apprenticeships. It also creates a national agency for “social cohesion and equal opportunity” and provides for tax exemptions in a further 15 “sensitive neighbourhoods” (100 in the past), assuming that companies will be enticed to creating additional employment there. The new law requires migrants with children to sign a “Contract of parental responsibility”, with a wide range of obligations. Those who fail to sign up risk losing social security entitlements. One legal reform issue is particularly contentious: a trial period of two years (previously three months) for all employees under 26 years before their jobs become permanent. This rule is intended to encourage companies to hire young people. Students and the trade unions are protesting, however, because this law would erode the rights of the employees affected.

Some politicians publicly regret that France stopped drafting all young men into military service some years ago. The time in the army used to play an important part in the integration process. The new law therefore establishes a voluntary citizens’ service (with training opportunities) for 50,000 young people. Nobody knows for sure what exactly this new service will consist of and whether it will appeal to members of the target group. Moreover, the national agency for social cohesion and equal opportunity will be empowered to carry out spot checks in French companies and impose fines.

“Is this supposed to be the necessary ÔMarshall Plan’?” scoffs Jean-Pierre Dubois, the human rights activist. “The national crisis is still ahead of us.” He argues that France has preached equal opportunities for all citizens for a long time, but never employed the means necessary to achieve such a state of affairs. Nevertheless, the claim of the Republic integrating all citizens with no concern for race or religion is still being vehemently defended. Demographers would like to collect data about ethnic minorities to get a clear picture of our society. However, this is forbidden in the name of national unity. In the meantime, Home Minister Sarkozy touches upon the taboo by demanding to register the ethnic origin of delinquent youths. Affirmative action, on the other hand, is officially not considered an option, even though it is already practised in some areas. For example, the distinguished university Sciences Politique in Paris has admission quotas for gifted high school students from the suburbs.

Last year, the conservative government passed a law obliging teachers to elaborate on the beneficial role of colonialism in school. There were angry responses from former colonies (particularly Algeria) as well as from the opposition parties. In the end, President Jacques Chirac promised to have the rule modified again. This political episode went to show that France has not really settled with its past.

Many people in France are uncomfortable with Islam. Normally, state and church are strictly separated in France. However, doing so is not straightforward when dealing with Muslims – and partly because of the colonial past. Such difficulties were recently exemplified in the row over Muhammad-cartoons from Denmark. The French Foreign Office spoke out against “offending any individual’s religious beliefs and convictions”. There cannot be any doubt, however, that similarly crude cartoons targeting the Catholic church would not have raised an eyebrow. Freedom of the press is a deeply rooted principle of the Republic and so is freedom of religion (including in the sense of not having to submit to any particular belief system). On the other hand, many French Muslims live with constant, implicit discrimination. They felt humiliated when French papers republished the controversial cartoons.

“In the French subconscious, every immigrant is still an Algerian. And every Algerian is a problem,” says Olivier Brachet of Forum des Réfugiés. “ We are trapped in our republican egalitarianism.” He says that, in the name of equality, diversity is considered a matter of course, but, at the same time, the nation does not deep inside accept diversity. “A good migrant in France is... French,” says Olivier Brachet.

Nathalie Gillet
is a freelance journalist based in Paris. She wrote this essay before the escalation of protests against government plans to introduce two-year trial periods for young employees in late March.
nat_gillet@yahoo.fr