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Christian Science Monitor
March 8 2012
Why Sarkozy's hard words about immigration may resonate in France
The bedrock concept of Frenchness is that any French citizen can climb
the ladder, if they speak French. But what about immigrants -- 11
percent of population -- who don't integrate?
By Scott Baldauf, Staff Writer / March 7, 2012
When French President Nicolas Sarkozy said there were `too many
foreigners' in France, he touched not only on the powerful issue of
immigration - always a crowd-pleaser in an economic slowdown - but
also on the more fundamental question of what it means to be French.
After all, Mr. Sarkozy himself is the son of a Hungarian immigrant. He
is also a conservative Rudy Giuliani-style career politician who sees
his job as defending French civilization from `les étrangers.'
And as Sarkozy faces challenges both from the far-right National Party
candidate Marie Le Pen and from Socialist Party candidate François
Hollande, Monsieur Le President has returned to the hard talk on
immigration that made him famous as a candidate years ago.
"Our system of integration is working worse and worse, because we have
too many foreigners on our territory and we can no longer manage to
find them accommodation, a job, a school," he said on France 2
television.
This statement, spoken on French national television, sounds perhaps
harder than it really is. While Sarkozy is clearly to the right of the
socialist position on immigration, he is far more moderate than the
far right, which advocates the withdrawal of state medical aid to
foreign-born immigrants.
These are lean times in France, far removed from the robust years of
French colonial expansion 200 years ago, when French warships sailed
the oceans, gathering up colonies like so many bon-bons. Even after
World War II, as France moved toward granting political independence
toward those colonies, France's leadership never questioned the notion
that all of the French-speaking world - including African and Middle
Eastern immigrants - were at some fundamental level actually French.
`The French really see their identity as a civilization, and they want
people to be part of that civilization,' Jean-Benoit Nadeau, the
Montreal-based sociologist and co-author of the book `Sixty Million
Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong.'
RELATED: Think you know Europe? Take our geography quiz.
French people like to think of their civilization as having deep and
ancient roots, Mr. Nadeau says, but in reality, the French
civilization they are preserving is relatively young. `Two centuries
ago, France was predominantly non-French speaking,' says Nadeau.
`French was spoken in Paris and the surrounding areas, but most of the
rest of the country spoke other languages, such as Occitane, Bretagne,
Alsacien.'
It took a French revolution, and ultimately a centralized French
government to impose a unified French language and a defined concept
of Frenchness on society, and it was this same definition of French
civilization that French colonizers took with them to Africa, the
Middle East, and beyond. It is a cultural framework that lives on in
France and other French-speaking nations, and few French people want
to see that cultural unity disintegrate.
That is what makes France's current immigration debate so emotional,
Nadeau says. `What do you do with 10 to 15 million citizens who don't
speak French?'
According to Eurostat, the statistics arm of the European Commission,
7.1 million people, or 11 percent of France's population were foreign
born as of 2009.
What would happen to France, if Sarkozy began to dismantle the present
setup for French immigration? Ivan Rioufol, a blogger for the
conservative Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro, says that even
discussing immigration is akin to `blasphemy.' But, he adds, it's time
to start risking the conversation, he adds.
`It would be absurd to maintain a zero immigration [rate] in an open
democracy. But a nation is neither a hotel nor a Spanish inn. It is
silly to claim that mass immigration will pay our pensions and insure
our demographics, not understanding that such contributions also bring
another civilization. Would it be asking too much of politicians and
media to give up their reflexive positions and think?'
For the record, Sarkozy's statements about "too many foreigners" are
not an indication that he is about to close the doors. At least not
yet. In the France 2 television interview, Sarkozy said, "I want
France to remain an open country, because that is the tradition of
France. But I do not want an immigration that is based solely on the
appetite for income-tested benefits," he added because in France
"there is a welfare system better than our neighbors."
Nadeau says that the problem is this: For French politicians to talk
about integration of immigrants, they have to admit that there is a
problem with integration, and therefore, perhaps it is a problem that
even something as robust as French civilization cannot resolve
naturally.
`Sarkozy is playing a dangerous game by bringing up immigration, but
he's got his back against the wall," says Nadeau. "It is legitimate
for Sarkozy to speak of integration, and I don't think that it is
necessarily extreme right for him to do so, but in the French
political culture, it is often interpreted as such.'
He laughs. `But the problem is, it is extremely difficult to know what
he means.'
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Keep-Calm/2012/0307/Why-Sarkozy-s-hard-words-about-immigration-may-resonate-in-France
From: A. Papazian
March 8 2012
Why Sarkozy's hard words about immigration may resonate in France
The bedrock concept of Frenchness is that any French citizen can climb
the ladder, if they speak French. But what about immigrants -- 11
percent of population -- who don't integrate?
By Scott Baldauf, Staff Writer / March 7, 2012
When French President Nicolas Sarkozy said there were `too many
foreigners' in France, he touched not only on the powerful issue of
immigration - always a crowd-pleaser in an economic slowdown - but
also on the more fundamental question of what it means to be French.
After all, Mr. Sarkozy himself is the son of a Hungarian immigrant. He
is also a conservative Rudy Giuliani-style career politician who sees
his job as defending French civilization from `les étrangers.'
And as Sarkozy faces challenges both from the far-right National Party
candidate Marie Le Pen and from Socialist Party candidate François
Hollande, Monsieur Le President has returned to the hard talk on
immigration that made him famous as a candidate years ago.
"Our system of integration is working worse and worse, because we have
too many foreigners on our territory and we can no longer manage to
find them accommodation, a job, a school," he said on France 2
television.
This statement, spoken on French national television, sounds perhaps
harder than it really is. While Sarkozy is clearly to the right of the
socialist position on immigration, he is far more moderate than the
far right, which advocates the withdrawal of state medical aid to
foreign-born immigrants.
These are lean times in France, far removed from the robust years of
French colonial expansion 200 years ago, when French warships sailed
the oceans, gathering up colonies like so many bon-bons. Even after
World War II, as France moved toward granting political independence
toward those colonies, France's leadership never questioned the notion
that all of the French-speaking world - including African and Middle
Eastern immigrants - were at some fundamental level actually French.
`The French really see their identity as a civilization, and they want
people to be part of that civilization,' Jean-Benoit Nadeau, the
Montreal-based sociologist and co-author of the book `Sixty Million
Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong.'
RELATED: Think you know Europe? Take our geography quiz.
French people like to think of their civilization as having deep and
ancient roots, Mr. Nadeau says, but in reality, the French
civilization they are preserving is relatively young. `Two centuries
ago, France was predominantly non-French speaking,' says Nadeau.
`French was spoken in Paris and the surrounding areas, but most of the
rest of the country spoke other languages, such as Occitane, Bretagne,
Alsacien.'
It took a French revolution, and ultimately a centralized French
government to impose a unified French language and a defined concept
of Frenchness on society, and it was this same definition of French
civilization that French colonizers took with them to Africa, the
Middle East, and beyond. It is a cultural framework that lives on in
France and other French-speaking nations, and few French people want
to see that cultural unity disintegrate.
That is what makes France's current immigration debate so emotional,
Nadeau says. `What do you do with 10 to 15 million citizens who don't
speak French?'
According to Eurostat, the statistics arm of the European Commission,
7.1 million people, or 11 percent of France's population were foreign
born as of 2009.
What would happen to France, if Sarkozy began to dismantle the present
setup for French immigration? Ivan Rioufol, a blogger for the
conservative Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro, says that even
discussing immigration is akin to `blasphemy.' But, he adds, it's time
to start risking the conversation, he adds.
`It would be absurd to maintain a zero immigration [rate] in an open
democracy. But a nation is neither a hotel nor a Spanish inn. It is
silly to claim that mass immigration will pay our pensions and insure
our demographics, not understanding that such contributions also bring
another civilization. Would it be asking too much of politicians and
media to give up their reflexive positions and think?'
For the record, Sarkozy's statements about "too many foreigners" are
not an indication that he is about to close the doors. At least not
yet. In the France 2 television interview, Sarkozy said, "I want
France to remain an open country, because that is the tradition of
France. But I do not want an immigration that is based solely on the
appetite for income-tested benefits," he added because in France
"there is a welfare system better than our neighbors."
Nadeau says that the problem is this: For French politicians to talk
about integration of immigrants, they have to admit that there is a
problem with integration, and therefore, perhaps it is a problem that
even something as robust as French civilization cannot resolve
naturally.
`Sarkozy is playing a dangerous game by bringing up immigration, but
he's got his back against the wall," says Nadeau. "It is legitimate
for Sarkozy to speak of integration, and I don't think that it is
necessarily extreme right for him to do so, but in the French
political culture, it is often interpreted as such.'
He laughs. `But the problem is, it is extremely difficult to know what
he means.'
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Keep-Calm/2012/0307/Why-Sarkozy-s-hard-words-about-immigration-may-resonate-in-France
From: A. Papazian