Introduction
France is a traditional country of immigration for several years. France has been taking in foreign populations to prevent its demographic decline since the 1980s. France has continued to receive legal emigrate with approximately 100,000 new entries per year. The legal flows have included EU immigrants who enjoy free movement rights, family members of legal residents , whose rights are protected by domestic law, and refugee as well as asylum –seekers admitted a basis of constitutional and international law.
Main text
The latest French consensus , released in March 1999, showed that there were 3,263,000 foreigners in France.As compared to 1990, this shows a decline of 9%.France is the only European country that has experienced a reduction of immigrants in Europe even though it has the highest number of immigrants.
The majority of immigrants in France are non-whites. It is estimated that there are about twelve million non-whites in France. Out of these twelve million, almost seven million are from North Africa countries namely, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria (www.bbc.co.uk, 1998” France tops Europe racist toll”).
Immigration and race relations have become important issues in France during the 1990s. High unemployment and violence mark the black and North African communities in France.
This issue of immigration has generated a lot of politics in France. The features of French political system explain why this issue is most prevalent in France. First, the French electoral laws have a focus on immigration.Unlike the multipolar party system in other European countries , which have encouraged complex coalition across multiple policy areas, France’s winner- take – all electoral system has led the left and right to exaggerate partisan differences.As macroeconomic and industrial policy ceased to be divisive political questions in France especially with the 1983 policy reversals of Francois Mitterrand’s socialist party’s the political left and right seized on new societal issues such as immigration.
France now holds a record for legislative change in immigration after successive national electoral campaigns in which each new government worked out to undo the previous legislation.Major reforms were done in 1980 , 1984 , 1987, 1989 , 1993, 1997 and lately 1998 , the immigration issues generated a heated debate on such issues as national identity , migrant incorporation , security and terrorism.Mobilization of both pro and anti-migrant forces has led to political discontentment.France is the only European country to experience a large–scale migrant social movement in the last three decades. Counter mobilization by the extreme right has also led to the political debate on immigration.It has pushed leading mainstream politicians on the right to address immigration issues in order to win votes from the right or to cause competing parties to loses votes to the national front.
In early 1990s , even though immigration in all categories of legal entries had fallen, Jean – Marie Le pen’s extreme-right –National front party was attracting a significant portion of the electorate with its unleading demand to expel Muslim migrants from France.Politicians across the political spectrum responded by arguing in favor of immigration zero and the right-wing coalition that came into power in 1993 translated the principle of zero immigration into policy.The Pasqua law of 1993 named after French interior minister Charles Pasqua, sought to stem the remaining legal flows in various ways , by prohibiting foreign graduates from accepting job offers by French employers and denying them a stable residence status, by increasing the waiting period for family reunification from one to two years, and by denying residency permits to foreign spouses who had been illegally in the country prior to marrying.These repressive measures rendered formerly legal migrant flows illegally.Thus today in spite of a portal regularization of undocumented aliens in 1997 , there are still many people living in France known as inexcusable- irregularisables.This group includes rejected asylum–seekers from countries to which it is not sated to return , and foreign parents of French children cannot be expelled yet it is not eligible for residence permits.They epitomize the contradictions of liberal democracies in the face of migration pressure, caught between respecting the human rights and norms embedded in domestic and international ,laws and an electoral logic that leads politicians to adopt or restrictive stance towards immigration.
In 1997, prime minister Lionel Jospin appointed political scientist Patrick Weil to write a report , L’ immigration et la nationality , that laid the groundwork for a new immigration law adopted in 1998.Weil argued that 1993 Pasqua law deterred foreign students and young professionals from settling in France.This deprived the country of a source of human capital and undermined its national interests in the global competition for bright minds.Weil policy recommendations were based on the American model which actually allows immigrants to the U.S A This law created a special status for scientists and for scholars the provisions of the law also created soft conditions for certain categories of professionals who may intend to report settle in France.
The Socialist party has also tried to walk the fine line between its traditional pro-immigrant policy and the desires of the electorate. When Jospin ascended to power in 1974 elections, he eased the citizenship requirements and regularized the status of some illegal immigrants but he didn’t repeal the Pasqua laws which tightened immigration control thus breaking one of his pre-election promises. (Safran 1999). This caused the Green Party to threaten to leave the coalition of the socialists. Many Gaullist politicians thought that Jospin went too far and by doing so he pushed some established right voters to the extreme right (Webster 1997)
The National Front defines the use of immigration issues in politics. It is the only party that deals with the issue of immigration. It is plausible that the right-wing parties in general benefit from the larger percentages of foreigners in some departments. The policies of the right-wing have generally been less favorable to foreigners than those of the left-wing parties. In 1975, Jacques Chirac declared that with one million unemployed and one million immigrants, France has the answer to its unemployment problem staring in the face (Milner and Mouriaux 1996).
Three years after the the1998 law of immigration and residency, France’s political left and right appear to have agreed not to disagree on immigration at the national level. This policy still privileges the restrictive function of immigration policy.The emergency EU regime on immigration and asylum negotiated by national interior and justice ministry bureaucrats is also characterized by a general policy of restrictiveness. The restrictive of traveling documents like passports visas etc have not even hindered France.
The issues of immigration in France is a result of flexible laws which allows those people who have been expelled from their countries for several reasons to seek asylum in France even people continue to stay in France even when the political administration in their countries of origin change.Further France hosts several people who are been displaced due to war in their countries.These people continue staying in France even after stability has reigned in their countries.
The situation is further complicated because the respective authorities in France do not restraint the relatives of the immigrants visiting them in France subsequently staying with them in France.
With the European Union in place, France will be forced to tighten its laws so that it can prohibit mass movement of immigrants to France. There has been uproar from other European unions, member Countries on the issue of immigration in France. Most migrants especially from North Africa find their way to France with the intention of sneaking their way to other European countries like the United Kingdom, Germany etc. It is from this context immigration in France is being viewed as a European issue because of the integration paths of non – European immigrants are diverging , and on the other hand because national immigration and integration policies are now in line with the community treaties which set out the frameworks for action by member states. Moreover , the member states are now being confronted by the same problems of radical economic changes , employment crisis , urban segregation , marginalization of unskilled workers , calling into question education systems , racism etc.
Summary
Every country has its own way of integrating its population depending on its political culture. At the same time, however, asylum and immigration policy is becoming a Community matter: under the Schengen Agreements (1985 and 1990), the signatory countries had already agreed, for instance, to harmonize conditions for the issue of short-stay visas. The Treaty of Amsterdam (Article 73k), signed in 1997, states that the Council of the Union should draw up measures in two areas of immigration policy: entry and residence conditions (issue of visas and long-term residence permits, including for the purpose of family reunion, by the member States) and illegal immigration and illegal residence. In the long term, these decisions will be taken by qualified majority. EU nation-States will nevertheless retain the right to decide independently how to form themselves into communities of citizens.
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