Three days after the appointment of Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government, the French public still doesn’t know whether their taxes will be raised, their public services weakened, their climate transition policy pursued or the fight against the “low-wage trap” launched. As the new government was formed after an entire summer of nothing, without the slightest discussion of substance, answers to these questions are not expected until Tuesday, October 1, in front of MPs, during the new prime minister’s general policy statement. But it took Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau less than 48 hours to set out his agenda, highlighting his favorite subject: immigration.
“Enough is enough (…) A country is not a train station concourse,” he told the conservative daily Le Figaro on September 24, affirming his determination to put an end to the “migratory mess.” Then during a long interview on TF1’s 8 pm TV news program, he presented France as “the most attractive country in Europe” and considered a new law. Less than a year after the political disaster of the immigration bill under then-interior minister Gérald Darmanin, Retailleau would clearly like to resurrect the numerous measures rejected by the Constitutional Council, notably restrictions on foreigners’ access to healthcare. This rush by the former head of the right-wing Les Républicains senatorial group (which introduced some of the immigration bill’s most controversial measures) to present himself as the defender of a country allegedly besieged by hordes of immigrants is doubly worrying.
Firstly, because it highlights the democratic rift resulting from the early parliamentary elections: While two-thirds of the French people rejected the far-right Rassemblement National party and its harmful use of xenophobia in the second round, they are now faced with an interior minister who, as soon as he is appointed, is sounding the same alarm.
Not the truth
Secondly, because Retailleau, who seemed eager to take charge of the Interior Ministry, is not telling the truth: To claim that foreigners choose France because of its generous social protection system is to misunderstand the many reasons for exile, the erratic nature of migratory routes and the mortal risks involved. To pretend that the tough directives he has announced for prefects will change anything is to ignore the chain of reasons – notably diplomatic and linked to international commitments – that hinder the deportation of undocumented foreigners. It only serves to feed a simplistic discourse, and mediocre results, which the Rassemblement National, lying in ambush, will eventually capitalize on.
There is little doubt that immigration is on the minds of the French and that it calls for a clear policy – mainly European and international – and a discourse based on the truth. We need only look at most developed countries to be convinced that denying this obvious reality, or reducing it to “racism,” as some on the left tend to do, is not the way to combat social jealousy, the fear of being downgraded and the prejudices and lies that turn this issue into a powerful political tool. But blaming it all on immigrants as the curtain rises on a new and uncertain legislative session can only fuel the already lively flame of the Rassemblement National, validate its use of foreigners as scapegoats and pave the way for its umpteenth one-upmanship.