Will France's immigration policy towards ethnic minorities change?

Compared with the previous right-wing government, the new French President Hollande's position on illegal immigration is quite tough, but it is predicted that the new government will not significantly adjust its immigration policy. Information picture

The immigration policy of Sarkozy government is the continuation and strengthening of the * * * model.

2012 may 16, the fifth French president Hollande took office, and former president Sarkozy stepped down. Looking back on Sarkozy's government's actions on French ethnic issues, we can trace back to France (Paris) in 2005, which is called the unprecedented chaos in France in the past 60 years. Faced with the large-scale dissatisfaction of immigrant minorities with the mainstream society, Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, took tough measures to effectively quell this large-scale dissatisfaction, and Sarkozy himself thus established a bold and tough image. In the 2007 presidential election, Sarkozy won nearly 40% of the votes in the hardest-hit province of Seine Saint-Denis, and the right-wing party candidate has never won so many voters' support in this region since 1965. During the election campaign, Sarkozy particularly emphasized his policy ideas on the issue of immigrant minorities, which mainly included two aspects: first, implementing selective immigration policies to control illegal immigrants; The second is to set up the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Development to take charge of the shaping project of national identity.

After Sarkozy was elected president of France in 2007, he made a series of policy adjustments on immigration and ethnic minorities. These adjustments can be roughly divided into three parts: First, in the control policy of immigration naturalization, strict selective immigration policy was adopted, and three laws related to immigration policy were promulgated, such as Sarkozy Law in 2006, Hortefeux Law in 2007 and Besson Law in 20 10, and illegal Roma residents were expelled in August 20 10. Second, social integration policies for individual immigrants, such as the Equal Opportunities Law of 2006-396, expanding the functions and powers of the High Office for Combating Discrimination and Promoting Equality, and establishing the National Office for Promoting Social Solidarity and Equal Opportunities to provide more scholarships and opportunities for ethnic minority children to enter elite schools. These measures are aimed at solving the problem of discrimination. Third, the social integration policies for immigrant groups, such as setting up the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity according to the election campaign, holding a nationwide discussion on national identity, promulgating a ban on Muslim burqa, setting up the Immigration and Social Integration Bureau, and expanding the functions and powers of the national research institution and think tank-the High Commission for Social Integration. Generally speaking, Sarkozy's immigration policy for ethnic minorities has the following characteristics: externally, strict selective immigration control policy is implemented; Internally, strengthen anti-discrimination at the individual level of citizens and strive to promote social equality; At the level of citizen groups, it is proposed to reshape national identity and respect the basic values of France.

In essence, the basic idea of Sarkozy's government's immigration minority policy is still to continue and strengthen the existing policy model adopted by France in dealing with foreigners. The * * * model emphasizes the basic values of the country, and maintains the stability of national identity through the homogenization of heterogeneous nationals, which is essentially a reflection of citizen nationalism and nationalism on how to treat others. The * * * model does not recognize the group rights of ethnic minorities, but only recognizes individual rights based on civil rights. Therefore, to some extent, it is a "depoliticized" ethnic policy model. Then, can this series of immigrant minority policies adopted by Sarkozy's government, which continue and strengthen the * * * model, alleviate the increasingly prominent racial contradictions?

Many immigration policies have been introduced, but with little effect.

As far as the direct result of policy adjustment is concerned, the French government has not actually received the expected effect, nor has it effectively alleviated the long-standing potential contradictions between different ethnic groups in France: France's expulsion of illegal Roma immigrants has been criticized by the European Union. As a member of a supranational organization, France's immigration control policy is inevitably restricted by the EU's immigration policy, so its effect is limited. In fact, the autonomy of EU member states will be further compressed in the future. In terms of social integration policies for ethnic minorities, a series of measures launched by the government aimed at anti-discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity have also had little effect, because equality of opportunity is important for ethnic minorities in France, but it is more fundamental to solve structural inequality. Simply focusing on equality of opportunity, it is difficult to really solve the discrimination against ethnic minorities in mainstream society.

In the social integration policy of ethnic minorities, a series of drastic reforms have attracted many criticisms, the most prominent of which are the following three major events:

First, the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity was established in 2007. Critics believe that the presupposition of this move is to regard immigrants as a group with natural problems in national identity, and even think that they are suspected of xenophobia and racism. The department was cancelled on 20 10 amid opposition.

Secondly, from the second half of 2009 to the first half of 20 10, the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity launched a nationwide discussion on national identity, which broke the taboo of French society to talk about national identity, ethnic discrimination and ethnic contradictions. However, due to the failure to effectively control and guide extreme and radical remarks in the later period, this big discussion not only failed to become a platform for ethnic communication, but further intensified contradictions among all parties.

Third, the law prohibiting the wearing of burqa was promulgated on June 20 10. The mainstream society takes it for granted to ban Buka, but it has aroused strong opposition among Muslim groups. On the one hand, this means the contradiction and fracture in culture and values between the mainstream society, elite and ethnic minorities in France; On the other hand, the cultural assimilation method aimed at strengthening national values has been opposed by ethnic minorities, which means that it is difficult to achieve homogenization through homogenization.

As far as the long-term results of policy adjustment are concerned, it has caused a series of sequelae. The policy adjustment has caused the further breakdown of French society, and the conflict and opposition between blond white French and colored French have further heated up. This led to the gradual decrease of moderates in the middle of the political spectrum, with right-wing conservatives turning right and ethnic minorities turning left. The support rate and loyalty of the far-right anti-immigrant party "National Front" have gradually increased and stabilized. At the same time, ethnic minorities have increasingly turned to support left-wing parties. Looking back at the history of the Fifth Republic of France, right-wing parties generally advocate strict immigration policies, while left-wing parties generally prefer moderate immigration policies. What needs to be pointed out here is that in the past, the so-called strict immigration policy of right-wing parties was mainly aimed at immigrants, but anti-discrimination was always the main policy in immigration integration. Therefore, as far as immigration policy is concerned, moderate right-wing parties should not lose points in the election.

However, the discrimination, poor living conditions and low social status of ethnic minorities have not been improved for a long time, which has brought about various problems from social security to national security, such as the three shootings committed by Algerian immigrant Mohammed Melahen in 2005 and 2007, and the mid-March of 20 12, which further aggravated the dissatisfaction of the mainstream society with immigrant ethnic minorities and made the far-right anti-immigrant political parties get more support and support. As a direct result of this vicious circle, in the first round of this year's French presidential election, the National Front steadily won 17.05% of the votes, becoming the third-highest political party except Hollande and Sarkozy. This virtually distributes the votes of moderate right-wing parties, thus reducing the possibility of moderate right-wing parties being in power. Judging from the voting situation in this year's presidential election, the trend of fragmentation and extremism in French society is more obvious, which in turn leads the president under the democratic election system to be responsible for the demands of the people at both ends of the spectrum, especially the far-right people. Therefore, the new president needs to adopt a more conservative policy, which will further arouse the dissatisfaction of ethnic minorities, thus forming a more vicious circle.

The future trend of Hollande government's immigration policy

Immigration is one of the core issues in the French election. At first, Hollande's attitude on immigration was vague, but with the deepening of the election campaign, in order to get more votes, his position and proposition had to be gradually clarified. On the issue of immigration, Hollande's opinions are roughly as follows: First, his position on illegal immigration is tougher than that of the last left-wing government. Second, it is suggested to limit the number of legal immigrants. For example, he said that after his election, he would ask Congress to revise the annual quota for non-EU foreigners to enter France to find jobs, and said that "it is necessary to restrict economic migration in difficult economic times". Third, on the issue of immigrant integration, he said that he would support and strengthen the ban on Muslim burqa, even though he abstained from voting in Congress. Moreover, he said that he would respond to the demands of far-right voters who support the National Front.

Therefore, although the left wing will be more moderate and tolerant than the right wing in terms of party position and party tradition, the support rate of Sarkozy and Hollande in this election campaign is not much different. As Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, failed to enter the second round of elections, the votes originally voted for the National Front in the second round of elections were diverted. Among the voters who support Le Pen, a large number of people think that immigrants (whether illegal or legal) have seized social resources such as job opportunities, social welfare, public housing, etc., which has aggravated the high unemployment rate in the economic crisis, and they are not opposed to immigration simply because of the conflict of culture, religion and values. Therefore, Hollande grasped the essence that some far-right voters opposed immigration because of economic and employment problems, and succeeded in getting 35% voters who originally voted for Le Pen to support him in the second round of elections.

If Hollande's campaign proposition is not only for the sake of campaign strategy, but really for his ruling, then his policy thinking on immigrant minorities during his term of office will be roughly as follows: First, strictly control immigration, whether illegal or legal. However, because he was born in a left-wing party, the severity of his policies would be between Sarkozy's period and the previous left-wing ruling period. Second, there is no substantial difference between him and Sarkozy on the social integration of immigrants. He still emphasizes * * * and national values and takes the road of homogenization. Generally speaking, compared with Sarkozy's government, Hollande's policy on immigrant minorities will not be greatly adjusted, especially during his first term. Therefore, there is no need to give too high expectations to the policy adjustment of the new government.