Immigration and identity key themes for French presidential candidates

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - Russia's war on Ukraine and the displacement of millions of Ukrainians have evoked widespread sympathy among the French people to welcome the refugees with open arms into the country, but it has not deterred presidential hopefuls from making the fight against foreign immigration a key agenda of their electoral campaign.

With the consequences of the war looming large on the economy and energy and food sectors, immigration is not even the main concern of voters this presidential election, but it continues to be the dominant topic of discussion for the presidential candidates.

The debate on immigration is closely linked with issues of security, the so-called "Islamization of France," and Blacks and race in the eyes of many. The key theme overriding all of them is a crisis of French identity. Politicians of all shades -- right, left and centrist -- have argued that the increasing immigration of foreign nationals has degraded traditional French values.

"When we are afraid of migratory phenomena, I think that we must also defend our DNA," outgoing President Emmanuel Macron reminded his supporters during his only election rally held on April 2. While he positions himself as a global leader, commentators have described him as a left-wing politician who plays right-wing politics, as his policies and statements during his first term in office have reflected the agenda of the far-right.

He proudly proclaimed that it is the duty of the French to welcome those like the Ukrainians fleeing the war but warned that France also needed "to know how to fight against illegal immigration." "It is through this clarity and this requirement (to fight illegal immigration) that, I think, we can respond to fears," he assured supporters.

Several nonprofit organizations working with asylum seekers have denounced the Macron government of racial discrimination by promptly providing accommodation for Ukrainian refugees while harassing the homeless refugees and migrants from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The unequal treatment has become more evident in the wake of the disastrous shipwreck tragedy in December that claimed the lives of 27 immigrants as they undertook the dangerous crossing through the Channel sea towards the United Kingdom off the French coast.

While Macron has vowed to reform the asylum system with faster decisions on the requests, he wants those who are refused the right of asylum to obligatorily leave the French territory. He also wants to condition the granting of a long-stay permit to those who succeed in the French language exam and who are professionally successful, thereby preventing France from being populated by desperate economic migrants.

- Right-wing's preferred agenda

Far-right candidate Eric Zemmour has declared himself a savior of the French and framed his election campaign around fighting an immigrant "invasion" and restoring the country's glorious past. His election campaign popularity -- polls rank him in fifth place with a 9% voting share -- is solely attributable to his right-wing agenda, which attacks immigrants and Islam, espouses white nationalism, and peddles a conspiracy theory called the Great Replacement.

The former journalist and leader of the Reconquest party sought to refocus the attention of the French people, which has been diverted by the war.

"The war does not solve the fundamental problem of our country, which is that we are undergoing an unprecedented crisis of disintegration, a great replacement of the population," he declared during a campaign interview on BFMTV on March 30.

If elected, Zemmour promises to strip dual nationals who are offenders of their French citizenship.

"I will expel 1 million people," he said on Monday during a rally. He also wants to create a ministry for remigration that will expel unwanted foreigners -- offenders, prisoners, those staying illegally, unemployed -- and limit the right to asylum "to a handful of individuals per year."

His main rival, Marine Le Pen, has for many years built her political career and the National Rally party through fear-mongering about foreign immigrants. She is currently leading in the polls for the presidential office after Emmanuel Macron.

Her immigration manifesto too closely resembles that of Zemmour's. Le Pen has also vowed to ban the regularization of foreign immigrants who are without valid documents and are staying without the requisite permission, penalize illegal entry and expel all foreigners who have not worked in France for more than a year.

The radically shocking views of Zemmour and Le Pen have resonated with French voters and earned a high probability of voting share on matters of immigration. An IPSOS-Sopra Steria survey with the Sciences Po Political Research Center (Cevipof) released on April 4 shows voters have the highest confidence in Zemmour with 73%, over Le Pen's (54%) with only 11 % for Macron, to control immigration into France.

The candidate for the conservative Les Republicains (LR) party, Valerie Pecresse, who is tied with Zemmour in the fourth position according to polls for voting intentions, promises to regain "control of immigration to defend our identity and our culture."

She wants to implement annual immigration quotas, deport immigrants who have returned illegally by sending them off on charter planes, deport rejected asylum seekers within two months, and reduce social assistance allocations for asylum seekers.

All the candidates who have vowed to oppose immigration have announced that they will take part in the government's program to welcome Ukrainians.

- Pro-immigrant candidates

Contrary to the perception, not all presidential candidates propagate anti-immigration sentiments. Six of the 12 final candidates have proposed positive steps toward asylum seekers, economic migrants, and refugees arriving in France.

Workers' Struggle (Lutte Ouvriere) party candidate Nathalie Arthaud has said that immigrants contribute positively to the French economy.

"Without immigrants, the construction, hospital, airport, hotel, cleaning, security, transport, car industry, and food industry sectors could not function," she affirmed in her election manifesto and proposes to establish freedom of movement for migrants.

Besides her, working-class representative Phillipe Poutou, left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Europe Ecologie Les Verts party candidate Yannick Jadot and French Communist party candidate Fabien Roussel have declared a pro-immigrant program. It includes steps to regularize all undocumented migrants, guarantee asylum to refugees, ensure a dignified reception for asylum seekers in all circumstances, close administrative detention centers, offer the right to work and end European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) operations, which include border control in the Mediterranean Sea and the repatriation of unauthorized immigrants.

- Rhetoric vs Numbers

Even if immigration dominates debates and helps boost the popularity of the candidates, official data reveals the situation is less dire than projected by politicians. France is not being flooded by economic migrants trying to take advantage of the country's resources or steal the jobs of the local people.

According to the Interior Ministry, in 2021, 733,069 visas were issued for the purposes of family reasons, followed by students, humanitarian and economic. A total of 94,092 people acquired French nationality. Last year, it received 121,554 requests for asylum applications, including from minors, mainly from war-ravaged Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Bangladesh, and Guinea. Of these, 39% were granted protection, while the rest of the asylum applications got rejected. Documented immigrants, according to the Ministry of Labor, represent merely 10% of employment in France, mostly in services jobs, construction, and public works.

The French take immense pride in the country's official motto of freedom, equality, and brotherhood. But the political discourse has focused on subjecting the immigrants to constantly prove their allegiance to the values of the Republic. The next five years of the new government are likely to bring in major systemic reforms on immigration and border control, and along with it, immigration and French identity will continue to be a topic used as a political punching bag.