Let's be frank: Immigration is invaluable for our economy

Blog, 19/12/2023, by Sven Franck

Faced with a catastrophic and misleading discourse on immigration, it would be a serious mistake to yield to the sirens of extremism, disregarding our economic and human responsibility.

While the immigration law is under the Joint Committee between the National Assembly and the Senate and subject to numerous bids, it is interesting to look beyond the hexagon: Hungary, long a European spearhead in anti-immigration rhetoric, recently announced its intention to recruit more than 500,000 "guest workers" from abroad to compensate for the rapid decline in its workforce. In July, Georgia Meloni launched a program aiming to welcome the entry of 450,000 migrant workers over the next 2 to 3 years, with the aim of filling gaps in sectors ranging from transportation to healthcare. Western world societies are aging, baby boomers are retiring massively, and we have fewer and fewer children to replace them. However, while our neighbors adopt a more rational approach to attract foreign immigrants, France remains stuck in the emotional narrative propagated by extremists that immigration would be a bad thing. Yet, we are facing a societal choice: either we attract enough workers to maintain our funded social systems and stable economies, or we will have to increase the retirement age to 70 or more, as the OECD already projects for many EU member states. And this spring showed how much our society rejects an increase in the retirement age...

Immigration as an economic stabilizer

Let's be honest: immigration has been a factor for success in our economy in the past. In the 1970s, our '30 glorious years', immigrants were credited with building 50% of the apartments, 90% of the highways, and one out of seven machines. And today, take a look in any kitchen of a Parisian brasserie, ask your Uber driver where they come from, or order food in one of your favorite restaurants: our economy cannot function without a constant flow of immigrants. We all applauded frontline workers every evening during the Covid pandemic, and now our government seeks to restrict their limited rights instead of seeking ways to facilitate access to the job market and ensuring legal certainty.

Think about it: the European elections are only six months away, yet our legislators are treating the issue of immigration as if France were disconnected from the European Union. We live in the largest global economic bloc that guarantees the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people. Yet, we restrict immigrants, especially asylum seekers and refugees, to national procedures and possibly referendums to decide whether they are welcome or not, instead of contributing to a European-level solution. Immigration will not miraculously stop because of a referendum. Ask the British - the UK now experiences greater immigration from non-EU countries than before Brexit. The challenge is not to avoid immigration. We can't. We need to figure out how to manage immigration to make it efficient for our economies and acceptable for our societies.

Integration means stability

How to ensure the success of immigration? The magic question. I am myself an economic immigrant, arriving in France in 2012 to work here. I learned French, I am active in associations, and I am even running in the European elections to represent France. But do I have all democratic rights? I don't, because we still grant them based on nationality instead of citizenship. At the other end of the spectrum, it's much worse. Can we really say that we treat everyone equally, as our Republic stipulates, or are we already discriminating based on name? Skin color? Or even postal code? Why is Uber considered by many as the first real chance to escape a suburb and perpetual unemployment? Shouldn't it be our educational system, which has just recorded its largest drop since 2000 in the latest PISA studies, and our institutions that provide these opportunities for everyone to succeed?

We leave behind our citizens, French and foreign, in education and digital transition, in rural areas and in the suburbs. It's no wonder that the vote is neglected and that the 37% for the far right in the polls for the European elections represent these marginalized citizens. We won't win them back with strengthened immigration laws, as less immigration doesn't mean more jobs or stability. On the contrary. If we want security and stability, we need to make integration work. This includes providing quality education and reliable public services everywhere. It means understanding and explaining the importance of immigration to our society. And it means finding rational solutions with our European partners instead of national unilateralism.

Europe prides itself on being united in diversity. And we should do the same in France. This could be our greatest asset if we focus on our republican principles, but currently, we risk turning it into the greatest liability for our economy, our society, and the European project.