20.12.2013 France: Policy of Isolation or Cooperation?

Christian Vanneste (2013), a politician of the conservative UMP, argues in Les Observateurs against a liberal foreign policy for France. He takes a statistic about the crimes committed by foreigners in 2012 offenses as an opportunity to advocate a rigorous segregation policy. The number of illegal migrants living in France Rroma is already alarmingly high: 15,000, or perhaps three times as many. With its radical planning policy, Vanneste is opposed to any forward-looking society in which people of all backgrounds coexist peacefully with each other. Instead, he argues flimsily for foreclosure policies. The fact that there is no culture of delinquency seems far from clear to him. Instead he criminalises people who are affected by poverty and exclusion: “Il y a 10% d’immigrés en France, et 18% d’étrangers parmi les détenus de nos prisons. Qu’il y ait un lien entre insécurité et immigration est une évidence. Il y en a deux autres : il est nécessaire de limiter l’immigration au minimum et l’on ne peut absolument pas compter sur l’Europe actuelle pour nous y aider”. [There are 10% of immigrants in France and 18% amongst the prison population. That there is a link between insecurity and immigration is obvious. There are two others: It is necessary to limit immigration to a minimum and one absolutely cannot count on current Europe to help us.]