There was something burlesque about it. Like in a scene by Marcel Pagnol. While the Pope, perched on the heights of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, extolled the virtues of the beautiful and great cultural “mosaic” of Marseille, the astonished good people wondered if he had heard correctly. Had this pope never heard of Socayna, 24 years old, mowed down by a burst of Kalashnikov while she was living peacefully with her mother on 3e floor of a building? A “lost bullet”, as they say. Behind the Potemkin village that had been set up for him, could he not understand that if Marseille was the French capital of immigration, it was above all the capital of gang wars and drug trafficking? Carried by grace, popes do not quite live in our world.
The heads of state and government of the European Council meeting today in Grenada cannot unfortunately claim to have access to the same heavenly voices. On the menu, the adoption of yet another Pact on immigration and asylum. A text that the 27 finally decided to adopt as there is so much anger from Lisbon to Budapest against a European Union which is nothing more than a sieve. Eight months before the European elections, while asylum requests increased by 30% in the first half of the year, immigration could indeed cause a real reaction at the polls next June.
Among the heads of government who feel the hot soup, we find the German Olaf Scholz. “The number of refugees currently seeking to come to Germany is too high,” he admits in a tone that strangely resembles that of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose country is nevertheless on the front line.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party now has 78 deputies in the Bundestag and 20% voting intentions in the polls. Double its 2021 result. The flat country is no exception. 56% of Belgians support the decision of the Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration to no longer welcome single men in shelters in favor of families with children only. Such measures are widely supported in countries as different as Poland or the Netherlands. Everything indicates that we have changed times.
It is difficult today to hide the fact that only a minority of these migrants are refugees in the literal sense. They enter Europe, from where they become indeportable thanks to the combined action of a hegemonic legal system and a humanitarian sector which gives pride of place – despite itself – to smugglers. With profits of $35 billion (in 2017), human trafficking has become the third most lucrative sector of organized crime according to the International Organization for Migration.
Regardless of what elected officials think, on September 21, the European Court of Justice deprived France of the right to immediately turn back illegal immigrants who cross its border with Italy. The same day, it prevented Italy from forcing illegal immigrants to reside in a residence center while their request was processed.
Not only cannot the migrant who arrives in Lampedusa be sent back to his port of origin, but he cannot be detained while his situation is examined. Once in France, he cannot be returned to Italy and can therefore remain there permanently since barely 5% of the obligations to leave the territory are applied.
The fabulous world of “No Borders” already exists. It is called the European Union. It is not surprising that the British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, herself the daughter of immigrants, declared that the Geneva Convention was “no longer fit for our times”. A great lover of Africa, the former socialist prime minister Michel Rocard did not think otherwise when he affirmed in 1989 that France could “not accommodate all the misery in the world” and that it must “remain what it is.” it is a land of political asylum […] but not more “. The same year, François Mitterrand estimated that the “threshold of tolerance” of the French towards foreigners had been reached… in the 1970s!
Thirty years and twenty laws later, the vast majority of French people and especially the working classes – who include 10 million poor people and are the first to suffer from this immigration – are still waiting for their leaders to stick to their declarations. Because, unlike many politicians who have thrown down the gauntlet, the people still believe in politics. This is why they have difficulty coping with leaders who claim to be capable of combating global warming but not illegal immigration which would be “inevitable”, while countries like Australia, Japan and Denmark have proved the opposite.
In a novel with an apocalypse feel, the former major reporter Jean Rolin, who covered the breakup of Yugoslavia, depicted a journey through France torn apart by a civil war (The events, Folio). We are obviously not there yet. But nothing says that this refusal of politics is not a recipe for chaos.