“In France, immigration has created pockets of poverty”

Housing difficulties began to weigh more and more on household income. In 1960, housing costs absorbed on average only 15% of this income. Today the average share is 30%, and can reach 40%. This leads to competition effects in access to social housing where 35% of immigrants live compared to 11% of non-immigrants. And deterioration of the living environment for all, particularly where private housing has become the place of de facto social housing for immigrants. It’s the Grande Borne in Grigny, or the Chêne Pointu in Clichy-sous-Bois. Finally, the acceleration of migration generates camps which, unlike slums, are not the obligatory place of residence for workers and their families waiting for housing, but that of people wandering without job prospects. .

These concerns reflect fears about the sustainability of the social state as an emanation of the nation state delimited by borders. Is it possible that our social state can take care of all the victims of globalization who wish, understandably, to benefit from its benefits at a time when the imbalance between contributors and beneficiaries puts it in crisis? Immigrants are not at the origin of this crisis, but their strong presence underlines it as much as it accelerates it since they cannot all contribute to collective wealth.

In Europe, immigrants represent 13% of the population. Along with North America and Oceania, our continent has the most immigrants and human diversity. In Asia as in South America it is less than 3%. 11% of immigrants reside in France. A figure that has never been so important. France is the OECD country with the highest share of poorly or uneducated immigrants. As a result, their employment rate is among the lowest. Thinking about the situation supposes articulating the number with the social situation.

Most European countries face comparable integration difficulties. In the 1930s, 800,000 Italian workers and their families in France had a literacy rate of 77%. And many were anti-fascists, which fostered links with the workers' movement which then led inclusive political and social battles and fought against discrimination against the “Ritals”. The Portuguese in the 1970s were over 70% literate with many young people fleeing military service from their country's colonial wars in Africa.

The Church, the unions, the Communist Party, the military service and the school have long been essential in the integration process. From the 1980s, these institutions declined, disappeared or had difficulty coping. Due to deindustrialization, the labor movement is seeing its mediation capacities between immigrants and working-class categories decline as less-trained people arrive, particularly from Africa. In 1975, people from Africa, mainly from the Maghreb, represented 35% of immigrants. Southern Europeans continue to dominate. In 1982, they represented 43%. And from 1990 they definitively supplanted those from southern Europe. However, they come, with certain immigration from Asia such as Afghans, from countries with deficient training systems, which penalizes them in access to employment.

Yes, the cultural and societal gaps between the departure and arrival societies have widened. The fear is emerging that certain behaviors will call into question our societal achievements, equality between women and men for example. For several decades we have been confronted with anti-Semitism, which is regularly deadly. It is to counter this that Germany has decided, since January, to subject any request for acquisition of its nationality to a test of anti-Semitism, and refuses it to those who deny Israel the right to exist, as these Subjects are at the heart of the moral and democratic reconstruction of Europe since the fall of Nazism.

Undeniably, pockets of poverty have been created by immigrants who have difficulty integrating. More than 30% of immigrants live below the poverty line and even almost 40% for those coming from sub-Saharan Africa.

The vast majority of immigrants live peacefully and integrate. Unfortunately, the overall image of immigration is tainted by a minority who indulge in “survival crime” or participate in mafia networks connected to places of drug production. However, the right to welcome presupposes respect for those who welcome.

France allows people who have never contributed to benefit from its social system as soon as they arrive. Even for people in an irregular situation, there is, and fortunately, a right to care, which is called state medical aid. It is broader in France than the management of vital emergencies which is what dominates in Europe. In France, more than 460,000 people are registered with the AME.

Added to this is a system specific to us, the residence permit for care, accessible to any person suffering from a serious illness, who can argue that the care they need, even if it exists in their country, is not socially accessible. The costs of care are then covered by solidarity through social security. At a time when contributors are seeing their out-of-pocket costs increase, it is understandable that this system is subject to debate.

Illegally crossing the Union's borders is much less dangerous than elsewhere on the planet. In France, anyone who is notified of an obligation to leave the territory (OQTF) has one month to carry it out on their own. If he contests it he will have access to a lawyer paid by the State through legal aid. His OQTF will not prevent him from being urgently accommodated by the State if he sleeps on the street, from being treated… And our detention system is far from being the most severe in Europe.

No country has demonstrated that it is capable of regulating migratory flows without imposing constraints on people. However, if we want to remain an open society, it is necessary for those who are not admitted to stay to leave. But the main pitfall is making the countries of origin admit that they must take back their nationals. Borders delimit the sovereignty of Europe. Countries that no longer control their borders end up transforming them into walls. This is not desirable. Borders are also doors, but they cannot be opened to all winds.

There are mechanisms in Europe for sharing the cost of reception. Their aim is to promote integration. Germany requires those who have obtained refugee status, who can only support themselves through social benefits, to reside in a specific city and accommodation. They will only be able to leave it for three years if they find a job. In France, only asylum seekers are allocated to the reception system. Denmark caps the number of non-EU immigrants in certain neighborhoods at 30% in order to encourage diversity. In France, we only use voluntarism based on the social data of residents, not on the national origin of people.

Other European countries are more demanding. The law promulgated in January will allow us to come closer to the practices that dominate in Europe by making obtaining a multi-year residence permit dependent on a minimum level of language.

Saying that immigration is an opportunity is at best a utilitarian vision, at worst a way of avoiding the issues of integration. In Europe, the most deprived of our fellow citizens have the feeling that they are being asked to welcome those more deprived than themselves at the risk of accentuating their own difficulties. Not taking it into account is another way of disregarding the social question.

Comments collected by Thierry Fabre