Jane Freedman - Immigration and Insecurity in France

For Stuart, Olivia and Juliette

Series Editors:
Neil Renwick and Nana Poku

Editorial Board:
Richard Bedford, University of Waikato
Tony Evans, University of Southampton
Tony Mcgrew, University of Southampton
Mark Miller, University of Delaware
Robert Morrell, University of Natal
David Newman, Ben Gurion University
Fiona Robinson, Carleton University
Peter Vale, University of Western Cape

Jane Freedman

First published 2004 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2017 by Routledge
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Copyright Jane Freedman 2004

Jane Freedman has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Freedman, Jane
Immigration and insecurity in France. - (Critical security
series)
1. Immigrants - France - Social conditions 2.Immigrants
Cultural assimilation - France 3.Social integration
France 4.France - Emigration and immigration - Social
aspects 5.France - Emigration and immigration - Government
policy
I.Title
325.4'4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Freedman, Jane.
Immigration and insecurity in France / by Jane Freedman.
p. cm. -- (Critical security series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN0-7546-3583-X
1. France--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects. 2. Immigrants--France-Social
conditions. 3. Immigrants--Cultural assimilation--France. 4. France--Emigration and
immigration--Government policy. 5. Social integration--France. I. Title.
JV7925.F75 2004
325.44--dc22
2004004805

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-3583-3 (hbk)

In 1983, following the French municipal elections which had been marked by the electoral breakthrough of the extreme-Right Front National, Etienne Balibar remarked that, 'to present those whose existence encompasses the maximum amount of insecurity, immigrant workers, as constituting the principal source of insecurity for France, is a paradox, if not provocation' (Balibar, 1992: 35).

This paradox/provocation was not, however, a passing phenomenon, and the theme of insecurity, and the threat that immigration poses to French society and the French nation, has been a continual leitmotif of political discourse in the years that have followed. Immigration has been interpreted through a prism of security by politicians, police and security services, the media and an important fraction of public opinion (Bigo, 1998). This discourse of security has confused the boundaries between Right and Left and has obscured many of the real social and economic issues surrounding immigration. In arriving at a consensus on the threat to security posed by immigration and the need to tackle this 'threat' through measures of control and repression, many of the realities of the patterns of immigration and of the experience of migrants themselves has been obscured. Although immigration has been a long-term component of French history, the contemporary period has seen a 'problematisation' and 'securitisation' of the issue that is new in its scope and scale. In these circumstances it is necessary to ask how and why immigration has been problematised in this way, and what the implications of the securitisation of the immigration issue are on migrants themselves.

Clearly migration has become a major global issue and one that cannot be ignored. In the post-war years a number of major developments in global migration patterns have placed the phenomenon at the heart of global politics. Firstly, the scale of movements has increased exponentially, so that by 2000 the International Organisation for Migration reported that over 2.5 per cent of the world's population was living outside of their country of birth (IOM, 2000), and virtually every nation was influenced in some way by migration. Secondly, there has been an enormous increase in the diversity of international population movement, with world migration being characterised not only by increased levels of permanent settlement in foreign countries, but also by a myriad of temporary and circular migrations of varying durations and with a rage of purposes. Thirdly there has been an increasing politicisation of immigration both at national and international levels with a dramatic increase in number of regional and global institutions aiming to shape the level and pattern of migration.

France, like other countries of the European Union has seen immigration become an increasingly central and contentious issue in recent years; an issue which has seen both a conceptual and geo-political widening (Geddes, 2003), It is also an issue, which, as argued above has become increasingly securitised. This securitisation has been magnified by processes of European integration, and the opening up of internal borders within Europe. From the start of negotiations over the creation of a borderless Europe, the main security risks were identified as immigration, drug-trafficking and international crime (Kostakopoulou, 2001). The inclusion of immigration in this list coincided with assumptions within the member states about the status of immigration as a threat to national security. Thus 'whereas intra-Community migration was regarded as a fundamental freedom and the cornerstone of European citizenship, non-EC immigration was portrayed by official discourse and policy as an 'invasion' to be feared and resisted (Kostakopoulou, 2001: 52). Large scale inflows of migrants from outside of Europe were perceived as potential economic burdens leading to labour market difficulties and strains on national welfare systems, threats to national security and identities, and to political stability. The framing of immigration as a security issue in this way has meant that national policies of repression and exclusion have been confirmed and justified at the European level.

Bigo analyses this securitisation of the immigration issue as the outcome of political activity of mobilisation led by politicians. Institutions, he argues, do not only respond to threats but determine what is and what is not threatening (Bigo, 1998). Immigration which is in reality a diverse phenomenon, encompassing many different individual trajectories and experiences, becomes, within the discourse of securitisation a catchword which can encompass all the various threats that may be posed to the nation and to the state. These forms of threat include a challenge to the 'basis of national social and political cohesion' (Collinson, 1993) and to dominant identities and cultures; a menace to economic stability and security in terms of the creation of unemployment and the strain put on national welfare systems; problems of crime and delinquency; threats of terrorism. Within the discursive framework of insecurity and threat, the term immigration becomes 'a terminology which catalyses fears and worries about the social, political and economic development of Western countries; which fixes uncertainties about national cultural identities and mechanisms of solidarity' (Bigo, 1998: 32).