Arnaud Montebourg, presidential candidate, was the guest of the RTL LCI Le Figaro Grand Jury on Sunday, November 7. He made a shocking announcement to fight against illegal immigration: to ban money transfers by Western Union to countries that refuse to welcome their own nationals. A proposal which, according to Clement Viktorovich, very confused.
Let’s be specific. Arnaud Montebourg targets, here, the obligations to leave French territory (OQTF), of which several tens of thousands effectively fail to be completed each year. There are several phenomena involved, but it happens that the country of origin refuses to issue the necessary consular pass so that the individual concerned can cross the border. This is, in particular, what seems to be happening with Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. How, then, to put pressure on these countries? Emmanuel Macron has engaged in a standoff, by reducing the number of visas granted by France to their nationals. But Arnaud Montebourg, he has a much more drastic proposal: “These are the countries of origin who refuse to take back people who come under their jurisdiction. So I am determined to hit the wallet. There are 11 billion money transfers going through Western Union on the whole. countries of origin. Well, we block all transfers. ”
Arnaud Montebourg is not the first candidate to support such a measure. He was beaten by… Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour. A surprising affiliation therefore for this candidate who calls himself a leftist, and a proposal which has earned him a shower of criticism from the left of the political spectrum. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for example, underlines that it amounts to sanctioning entire families who live in these countries, and whose subsistence depends on the help of a relative who works in France legally, or even moreover who is French, in which case these families have absolutely nothing to do with illegal immigration. That said, as far as I’m concerned, it’s something else that interests me. Not the relevance of this measure, but rather its consistency. Let’s go back a bit. The main problem, according to Arnaud Montebourg, is above all integration: “We don’t know how to integrate, we no longer know how to integrate, the machine to integrate no longer works. So I defend integration or nothing.”
Here again, we could debate this question. Does integration work in France or not, is it a major problem or not? We can discuss it. But in this case that is not the subject, since, by hypothesis, the question of integration arises for people who will remain on the national territory, and not for individuals targeted by OQTFs, those- right there that Arnaud Montebourg desires to expel more effectively.
How then does he make the link from one to the other? Well it’s simple, acrobatic, and it does it like this: “Why do we not manage to integrate? Because today you have 100,000 measures of obligation that we cannot execute, weighing on people who are irregular, clandestine, who must leave the territory. And who are there. And who, moreover, are delinquents. ” Then, “why we can’t integrate”, asks Arnaud Montebourg? Because there are OQTFs that are not executed. However, these people represent only a small part of all immigration, legal and illegal. Arnaud Montebourg therefore finds himself saying that his shock proposal to promote the integration of immigrants in France is to cut off food for families back home. So, we think what we want from the proposal itself. On the other hand, the reasoning which leads Arnaud Montebourg to support it seems to me to be a balancing act.
And then there is also this sentence uttered briefly by Arnaud Montebourg: “These illegals that we cannot get rid of, and who, moreover, are often delinquents.” It is worth stopping there. Some may indeed have been convicted, released from prison, or even, in a few cases, be considered a threat to public order. But the main reasons for OQTF are the non-renewal of a residence permit, the total absence of a residence permit, or the refusal of the right to asylum. In this excerpt, Arnaud Montebourg is therefore content, basically, to trace a direct link between immigration and delinquency, without ever bothering to argue its rise in generality. But it is not finished ! Because, wishing to be open despite everything, Arnaud Montebourg gives us some examples of successful integration, according to him: “These are individuals. You have some who are thugs and others who are future extraordinary French. There you are. Charles Aznavour, Zinedine Zidane, they have become great French, but before they were immigrants. ” There, it is the moment to recall the definition of an immigrant, according to the INSEE: “A foreign person born abroad, and residing in France.” Charles Aznavour was born in Paris. Zinedine Zidane, in Marseille …
In short, here as in all the rest of this sequence, it is the great confusion. Arnaud Montebourg confuses everything. He juggles the concepts of origin, immigration, integration and delinquency, ignoring all rigor and coherence. Of course, one may want to take a firm line on these issues. But the least of things, in this case, is to have brought it a little care, work and thought.