The visit on November 11 by the Minister of the Interior to the Menton border, where 22,000 migrants from Italy have transited since the beginning of the year, has reignited the debate on the immigration issue.
Eric Ciotti, who has made these security themes his main line of business, has stepped into the fray to criticize the government’s policy and the lack of measures adopted by the Minister.
Demagoguery always takes precedence over reasoning. Betting on the “politics of emotion” is always rewarding in the short term. The debate conveys more fantasies than realities, but political leaders tend to only approach it from the perspective of its effects on public opinion.
Naturally, immigration is always talked about and never emigration: Just to remind that more than 1.5 million French people reside abroad, including 132,000 in Switzerland. Nothing to say?
Recalling the reality of statistics is the best antidote against incorrect or distorted perceptions.
The facts, first of all, are that migrations have always existed in history, both within the same country and between different states. It is not reasonable to act as if Europe is suddenly faced with a new phenomenon in the form of an unprecedented wave of migration. Especially since the figures rather show that immigration to Europe is relatively low.
In the European Union, there are about 30 million residents born outside the EU, or around 6% of the total population. The number of undocumented immigrants is estimated between 4.5 and 8 million. Out of more than 500 million European citizens, undocumented immigrants thus represent between 0.97% and 1.73% of the European population.
When the issue of Roma integration occupies the center of the political debate, it should be reminded that there are about 20,000 of them in France.
These percentages are to be compared with the situation in the United States: 12 million undocumented immigrants out of 320 million inhabitants. Moreover, the American authorities regularly proceed with the regularization of undocumented immigrants.
Europeans have a more cautious attitude, although some states in the Union rely on immigration to supplement failing demographics, such as Germany.
Another common belief is that Europe is at risk of being overwhelmed by hordes of poor souls from the South. However, according to the United Nations Development Programme report, 60% of migrations occur between rich countries, and only 37% between poor and rich countries.
To keep “misery” at their doors, Europe has long relied on the authoritarian and repressive regimes of the southern Mediterranean. These barriers fell with the “Arab Spring.”
But the immigrants coming from the south of the Mediterranean are no longer the illiterate rural people that the European automotive industry imported by the hundreds of thousands starting in the 1960s. They are increasingly “unemployed graduates” who do not find qualified jobs in their home country but are educated and speak a foreign language.
For France, family reunification no longer plays a significant role in immigration. Only 5 to 6% are children among the legal immigrants, who account for 200,000 people per year, including 60,000 students. Added to this are the undocumented immigrants, whose total number is estimated at 300,000. In light of these figures, one must consider 100,000 annual departures to get an idea of the proportion of the foreign population.
Another problem is posed by asylum seekers: 62,000 per year in France, of which only 15% are accepted. In other words, contrary to another common belief, 85% of asylum applications are denied. The difficulty lies in the processing times of the files, which can last several years. In the meantime, some asylum seekers disappear and end up in the category of undocumented immigrants.
These statistics paint a reality that the politicians of the government parties would be well advised to recall instead of rushing into the open doors left by the National Front. This reminder is an antidote against incorrect or distorted perceptions.
In all the cases that have made headlines in recent weeks (Calais, Menton), there is no solution outside of a common and coherent European immigration policy.
This absence is explained by different national situations. What is common, for example, between Greece, which is at the forefront of illegal immigration from the Middle East and Asia, often via Turkey, with maritime borders that are difficult to control, and Germany, which wants to attract well-trained foreigners to fill a labor shortage in strategic sectors?
Their only common point is their membership in the Schengen area, created in 1985. Today, 22 European Union countries (plus four non-EU European states) have abolished their internal borders and entrusted the monitoring of the EU’s land and sea borders to the “front” countries, those located on the periphery of the EU.
Logic would have suggested that controlling the common external borders be a European mission, entrusted to a European border guard corps. It is not.
Each state guards its sovereignty jealously, which does not prevent the southern countries from asking the northern countries for a “burden-sharing.”
An embryo of a European border police emerged in 2004 in the form of the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the EU’s External Borders, Frontex.
Neither strengthened border surveillance nor the fight against illegal immigration can replace a common immigration policy. Repression is apparently the easiest answer, and unfortunately the most popular, with the rise of far-right movements in many European countries.
But it is a short-sighted policy. It will never prevent migrants from trying their luck and overlooks the medium-term demographic needs of the Old continent, which has never deserved its name more.
Regulating flows, integration policy, and development projects in emigration countries: these are the three pillars of a concerted European immigration policy.
