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| Immigrants set up camp in a Paris suburb earlier this month to press for housing. Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images |
France's open door is closing
An immigration bill, expected to pass, requires knowledge of French and proof of support.
from the September 18, 2007 edition
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Yet several ministers from the left brought in by Sarkozy have opposed it, including Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister. "'What bothers me is that it casts opprobrium on the strangers who want to come in France," says Fadela Amara, minister of state for housing and urban affairs.
Perceptions of the law among different sectors of French society are divided. On the left, the laws were seen as a sad testament to broken ideals. For the silent conservative majority, embittered by a social-welfare system regarded as naively generous, it seemed about time.
For African and Arab migrants, entry to France never seemed this difficult. In the banlieue, or suburbs, these measures are viewed as of a piece with harsh police behavior, identity-paper checkpoints, and deportations.
In Argenteuil, a largely immigrant banlieue outside Paris, Younouss, a well-dressed master plumber from Mali who will give only his first name, agrees the job market is so bad that France must stop accepting people such as himself, who arrived 17 years ago on a tourist visa. But he feels "there is a lack of dignity in the DNA test. It is used for political purposes. Make a law, OK. But don't make us feel like animals."
France and Europe are "absolutely more difficult to come to today," he adds. "But things in Mali are so bad, people are still trying. Do you think we will risk our lives and leave our families if we don't need to?"
Mr. Ma, from Jinan Provence in China, works in an Argenteuil Chinese restaurant. He speaks fluent French and came in 2006 as an MBA graduate student. He promised French officials in China he would return, but plans to do all he can to stay. He feels confident he can qualify or find a way. The new immigration laws "will be OK for us, but it will be more difficult for them," Ma says, pointing across the street to three dark-skinned youths strutting and shouting.
Since riots among mostly Arab and African immigrants in Paris suburbs in 2005, much of the French middle-class electorate has hoped for a French leader who will get tough and bring stability. Sarkozy, as the former interior minister, responded to these sentiments throughout the presidential campaign this spring. Both he and far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen promised to change the social model France has followed for many years, including firm support of the ever-more-restless minority populations in the banlieue.
Eric Raoult, who represents the tough Seine Saint-Denis suburb for Sarkozy's majority party in the assembly, on Sunday sent a letter to Islamic, Christian, and Jewish leaders in his suburb asking them to support the new immigration proposals.
Mr. Raoult said it was important to stop the influx of poor migrants from developing countries who were arriving from France without money enough to live in decent housing and manner.
He warned about the "ghetto effect" in Saint-Denis that has made living in this banlieue insecure and dangerous, especially for its own residents.
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