In France, immigration, one of the major concerns of voters, irrigates the legislative campaign where the far right is in the lead: if it is not new, this “fear of foreigners” is amplified by a global context of political “anxiety” and “powerlessness”, according to researchers.
In an Ipsos survey carried out on June 6 and 7 on the determinants of voting in the European elections, largely won by the far-right National Rally (RN) party, immigration constitutes “the” major subject for 23% of French people planning to vote , ahead of purchasing power (18%). 43% make it one of the three main reasons for their vote.
The RN has historically made it one of its favorite themes. Its president Jordan Bardella, prime minister expected in the event of an absolute majority in the National Assembly, regularly criticizes “massive uncontrolled immigration” and particularly wishes to abolish “soil rights”.
France issued a record number of first residence permits last year, at 323,260, up 1.4% compared to 2022, while expulsions increased sharply (+10%, to more than 17,000 ), according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Anti-immigration speeches have all the more resonance, for the anthropologist Michel Agier, as they have been part, for around twenty years, of a general climate of anxiety, fueled by “the feeling that “we live in permanent insecurity”: natural disasters, different forms of terrorism or the perishing of protective States, lists the researcher.
“This fear leads to the production of a scapegoat, but this is not new,” observes the Director of Studies at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS).
“Postcolonial heritage”
What is contemporary, on the other hand, is according to him “the postcolonial heritage which produces a kind of racism which is behind this obsession of the extreme right with immigration issues”, underlines the anthropologist.
“When we say that there are too many migrants, we are not talking about Americans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Ukrainians… We are not talking about white people, even though they come in very large numbers […] but are not welcomed in the same way,” notes the specialist in the relationship between human globalization and exile.
According to the national statistics institute (INSEE), in 2022, seven million immigrants lived in France, or 10.3% of the total population and 35% of them acquired French nationality (2.5 million ).
Less than half, 48.2% of immigrants were born in Africa and 32.3% were born in Europe. The most common countries of birth of immigrants are Algeria (12.5%), Morocco (11.9%), Portugal (8.2%), Tunisia (4.7%), Italy (4.0%), notes INSEE.
Furthermore, according to Mr. Agier, the loss of community benchmarks with the breakdown of families and the development of individualism leads to the withdrawal of a population. “Since the 1990s, almost everywhere in the world, States have disengaged a lot and given citizens the impression of being less protected by them,” he observes.
“Weak opponents”
An observation shared by Swanie Potot, researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), who highlights a feeling of socio-economic fragility: “The foreigner embodies the globalization associated with relocations, salary reductions and the in competition of workers on an international scale.
“Powerless in the face of this globalization, the political sphere, well beyond the far right, is taking up immigration issues because it shows that it can act with concrete measures, thus reassuring its ability to decide,” she believes.
“Migrants are weak adversaries, politically voiceless […] unlike finance,” explains the sociologist specializing in migration issues.
Since 1980, 29 laws on immigration have been recorded in France, or one every 17 months, recalls the Museum of the History of Immigration.
But stigmatizing a population and devoting them to clandestinity by tightening the measures for their settlement in France, in the hope of dissuading them from coming, produces the opposite effect and slows down their integration, migrant aid associations regularly point out.
“These people will not have the right to work legally, to housing, to healthcare and this is developing an informal economy which encourages delinquency,” observes Swanie Potot.
“It would be enough to stop fueling these fears and transfer politics to other subjects for it to disappear by itself. There is nothing immutable in the rejection of the foreigner,” she believes.