A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #352 - Undocumented immigrants, shelters, unaccompanied minors: immigration struggles in France - Introduction to the immigration dossier (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A nauseating wind is blowing from the government. It's a race to the 
bottom to see who can hit hardest on immigration. At the time of 
writing, Retailleau seems to be holding the line, with his large-scale 
(and infamous) train station raids, his "Muslim Brotherhood" suspicions 
about those who have assimilated, his love of OQTFs and their 
enforcement, his umpteenth circular to make regularization even more 
complicated... He is protected by a Prime Minister who has adopted the 
far-right expression "migratory submersion." The "left," however, 
remains relatively silent on the subject. But we cannot forget the 
Socialist Party's role in the 1980s in branding immigrants as a burden 
and a foreign body to society. All this against the backdrop of an 
equally nauseating soup served up by the mainstream media.

In authoritarian periods, racism and xenophobia have always been favored 
by those in power to deflect anger and as a means of division. In 
France, this racism and xenophobia have always had colonial overtones: a 
significant portion of immigration comes from our former colonies, whose 
loss the French state has still not come to terms with. This 
anti-immigrant policy serves more than just an ideological purpose of 
division and scapegoating. Repressing immigration means putting some of 
us in a position where we are forced to accept unacceptable wage and 
working conditions (see the testimonies of undocumented immigrants in 
this report), and thus undermines all of our social gains. Denying 
immigrant retirees their pensions (you now have to reside in France for 
more than six months a year to receive your pension) is an attack on a 
social right at its very roots. Retirement is based on our 
contributions; it's a right acquired through our struggles. Making it 
conditional on nationality and residency is an attack on the very 
essence of our social security system, a promise of future dismantling: 
if we deny it to some contributors, why not deny it to others?

In fact, immigrants, the bourgeoisie (1), both right and far right, 
prefer them undocumented, available to be forced into labor at will. 
Retailleau knows well that announcing large-scale raids in train 
stations in advance is ineffective in hunting down undocumented 
immigrants. To boost numbers, it's better to arrest them as they leave 
their homes or on commuter buses in the early morning, as they leave for 
work. However, this helps maintain an atmosphere of fear and terror, and 
the real goal is media coverage. Portraying immigrants and their 
descendants as a danger also facilitates the criminalization of solidarity.

Of course, the report you are about to read doesn't fully address the 
issue. It would have needed at least a special issue. It should have 
discussed the CRAs, these prisons where people are locked up without 
trial or judicial supervision for increasingly long periods of time, and 
from which associations are increasingly excluded. It should have 
discussed the families separated by this deportation policy. We should 
have talked about the cemetery that the Mediterranean has become, the 
English Channel, the desert crossing... In 2024, at least 8,938 people 
died on migratory routes worldwide, according to the latest figures from 
the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In reality, many 
more, because not all deaths are recorded. We should have talked about 
Europe outsourcing border surveillance by paying handsomely to Libyan 
militias, Tunisia, Morocco... We should have talked about the murderous 
role of Frontex, whose former director is a candidate for the National 
Rally. We deliberately focused on immigration and therefore did not 
address the subject of its children, very often French but still 
discriminated against.

Supporting immigration struggles is supporting ourselves. Anti-racism is 
often presented as a humanitarian action. Certainly, humanity is one of 
the things that separates us from the deadly policies of capital. But 
even when we have the ridiculous impression that we're only fighting for 
the papers or housing of this or that person, this is somewhat similar 
to union action, which isn't limited to strikes and days of action, but 
also involves defending individual situations. This is certainly not 
what excites us most about daily resistance at work, but it is a 
necessity for action.

We have nothing to gain from the competition between the exploited that 
the bourgeois parties and media fuel. Undocumented immigrants, shelters, 
unaccompanied minors: immigration struggles in France - Introduction to 
the immigration dossier

A nauseating wind is blowing from the government. It's a race to the 
bottom to see who can hit hardest on immigration. At the time of 
writing, Retailleau seems to be holding the line, with his large-scale 
(and infamous) train station raids, his "Muslim Brotherhood" suspicions 
about those who have assimilated, his love of OQTFs and their 
enforcement, his umpteenth circular to make regularization even more 
complicated... He is protected by a Prime Minister who has adopted the 
far-right expression "migratory submersion." The "left," however, 
remains relatively silent on the subject. But we cannot forget the 
Socialist Party's role in the 1980s in branding immigrants as a burden 
and a foreign body to society. All this against the backdrop of an 
equally nauseating soup served up by the mainstream media.

In authoritarian periods, racism and xenophobia have always been favored 
by those in power to deflect anger and as a means of division. In 
France, this racism and xenophobia have always had colonial overtones: a 
significant portion of immigration comes from our former colonies, whose 
loss the French state has still not come to terms with. This 
anti-immigrant policy serves more than just an ideological purpose of 
division and scapegoating. Repressing immigration means putting some of 
us in a position where we are forced to accept unacceptable wage and 
working conditions (see the testimonies of undocumented immigrants in 
this report), and thus undermines all of our social gains. Denying 
immigrant retirees their pensions (you now have to reside in France for 
more than six months a year to receive your pension) is an attack on a 
social right at its very roots. Retirement is based on our 
contributions; it's a right acquired through our struggles. Making it 
conditional on nationality and residency is an attack on the very 
essence of our social security system, a promise of future dismantling: 
if we deny it to some contributors, why not deny it to others?

In fact, immigrants, the bourgeoisie (1), both right and far right, 
prefer them undocumented, available to be forced into labor at will. 
Retailleau knows well that announcing large-scale raids in train 
stations in advance is ineffective in hunting down undocumented 
immigrants. To boost numbers, it's better to arrest them as they leave 
their homes or on commuter buses in the early morning, as they leave for 
work. However, this helps maintain an atmosphere of fear and terror, and 
the real goal is media coverage. Portraying immigrants and their 
descendants as a danger also facilitates the criminalization of solidarity.

Of course, the report you are about to read doesn't fully address the 
issue. It would have needed at least a special issue. It should have 
discussed the CRAs, these prisons where people are locked up without 
trial or judicial supervision for increasingly long periods of time, and 
from which associations are increasingly excluded. It should have 
discussed the families separated by this deportation policy. We should 
have talked about the cemetery that the Mediterranean has become, the 
English Channel, the desert crossing... In 2024, at least 8,938 people 
died on migratory routes worldwide, according to the latest figures from 
the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In reality, many 
more, because not all deaths are recorded. We should have talked about 
Europe outsourcing border surveillance by paying handsomely to Libyan 
militias, Tunisia, Morocco... We should have talked about the murderous 
role of Frontex, whose former director is a candidate for the National 
Rally. We deliberately focused on immigration and therefore did not 
address the subject of its children, very often French but still 
discriminated against.

Supporting immigration struggles is supporting ourselves. Anti-racism is 
often presented as a humanitarian action. Certainly, humanity is one of 
the things that separates us from the deadly policies of capital. But 
even when we have the ridiculous impression that we're only fighting for 
the papers or housing of this or that person, this is somewhat similar 
to union action, which isn't limited to strikes and days of action, but 
also involves defending individual situations. This is certainly not 
what excites us most about daily resistance at work, but it is a 
necessity for action.

We have nothing to gain from the competition between the exploited that 
the bourgeois parties and media fuel. Attacks on immigration and 
widespread racism, not just popular but primarily institutional and 
media-based, are at the heart of attacks on our social gains, on our 
class. The anti-immigration laws facilitated by racist propaganda make 
some of the exploited more precarious, excluding them from our rights 
and social gains. In doing so, our rights and gains are being 
undermined. The very notion of equality is being regressed. This is why, 
in these difficult times, immigration remains a central issue.

CJ Ile de France

Note
(1) Finally, its dominant faction. A certain number of small business 
owners lacking skilled labor are in favor of regularization.

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4483
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