doYour Michel Barnier, remember: in 2016, you chaired a report on France Stratégie’s missions. But, appointed Brexit negotiator by the European Union, you had to interrupt your hearings. I replaced you in a short time and we signed the report together in March 2017. This episode allowed me to appreciate your talents: experience, spirit of independence, composure.
Hence my dismay during the primaries of the Les Républicains party. [LR] in 2021. To convince the hard core of its militants, the five candidates seeking the party’s nomination for the 2022 presidential elections played “harder than me on immigration policy, you die.” According to you, our borders were “royal sieves”It was necessary to stop the “massive regularizations”reduce “half” the number of foreign students.
And this double discovery: a “moratorium” on immigration, a “constitutional shield” protect national law from attacks on European law through referendums. You succumbed to the bidding war that brought LR to the doors of the National Assembly (RN). In this game, the extreme right always wins. So, what will be your line tomorrow?
You have said it from the beginning: we must tell the French the truth. Chick! This means first recognising that immigration has nothing to do with the budget crisis, climate change or the war in Ukraine, and sticking to the facts.
Should I, as a European, refer you to the data from Eurostat and the United Nations? France is neither a sieve nor a fortress. Since 2000, the proportion of immigrants has increased by 60% in the world population and by the same amount in the Old Continent (only Eastern Europe remains a land of emigration). France followed this trend, but at a lower level. It regulates much more than we say.
Where are the “massive regularizations”?
The truth is that, during the migration crisis of 2015-2016, unlike the “overwhelm” As Marine Le Pen denounced, we have not done our part in welcoming exiles. Of the total number of Syrians, Iraqis or Afghans who have successfully applied for asylum in the European Union (EU), France represents around 5% since 2015, while our country represents 16% of the EU population and 18% of its gross domestic product. Certainly, since the fall of Kabul in August 2021, we have made notable efforts to welcome Afghans. But it is still three times less than Germany.
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