Paris has a problem. The city currently houses some 5,000 migrants in hotels, much to the chagrin of the capital’s hoteliers. France’s capital is hosting two major tournaments in the next year: the Rugby World Cup in September and the Olympics next summer. An enduring headache for president Macron is where supporters will stay; hotels have been clamouring for permission to free up their rooms for tourists.
The solution Macron has come up with is to move the migrants out to the sticks, thereby freeing up those hotels. Their facilities were commandeered by the government because the numbers of homeless in Paris (the majority of whom are migrants) have overwhelmed the accommodation centres.
It is surely time the people were consulted on the most contentious issue of the age
There might be another reason why Macron is eager to ease the strain on Paris, and that is the crime rate; he claimed last year that foreigners are responsible for 50 per cent of the petty crimes committed in Paris.
But offloading Paris’s problem onto the provinces is hardly the answer. Indeed, judging by recent history it could create more tension.
In January this year, the mayor of the Brittany town of Callac abandoned his idea to open a migrant centre after fierce opposition from locals. In the weeks preceding his decision right wing and left wing protestors descended on the town, and the febrile atmosphere was such that the mayor pulled the plug. Two MPs from the far-left France Insoumise accused the government of doing ‘nothing to prevent the fascists from reigning by terror in the town’.
Earlier this month the mayor of Saint-Brévin in western France resigned after his home was firebombed by locals who were opposed to his plan to relocate a migrant centre next door to the primary school. On Wednesday an assortment of political figures from the left held a rally in the town in support of the mayor, although he chose not to participate, accusing them of exploiting the incident for their own ends.
The rally was held 24 hours after the mayor of Bruz, a town of 18,000 people in Brittany, spoke out against a plan to site a migrant reception centre in his community. The left-wing independent mayor said it was unfair on the locals, and on the migrants, who would not be bussed to Brittany ‘by choice’ and probably would not appreciate being housed next to a railway line. He was also unhappy that he was not consulted on the decision, learning of it three weeks ago by a government text message.
There is also the question of employment. It’s all very well for Macron to talk, as he did last year, of repopulating the provinces with migrants. But there is a reason why these regions’ young people tend to move to the cities: there is no work in rural communities. Are jobs going to be magicked out of thin air for the migrants, or are they simply being ferried out to the countryside where they’ll be out of sight and out of mind?
It’s a sticking plaster strategy, unfair on locals and on the migrants, many of whom were sold a different vision of what awaited them in Europe by the traffickers who helped them cross the Mediterranean.
It’s also a sign of how divisive the issue has become in France. Left-wing politicians bandy about words like ‘fascist’ to describe those in any way opposed to mass immigration. Those on the right, meanwhile, point to the fact that, in the last decade, opinion polls have consistently found that a large majority of citizens want migrant numbers reduced.
The right’s answer is a referendum. Marine Le Pen has declared herself in favour, as have the centre-right Republicans. Indeed, the idea was mooted in 2021 by none other than Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator during the Brexit talks.
The man who beat Barnier to the presidency of the Republicans, Eric Ciotti, was one of three party grandees who on Wednesday sent a two-page letter to the Élysée. The previous week Ciotti had unveiled a series of measures he wants introduced, including annual quotas on migrant numbers, the deportation of foreigners convicted of crimes and a root and branch reform of asylum procedures.
In the letter sent to Macron, the Republicans urged him to take decisive action on a migrant crisis they consider ‘out of control’. The letter continued: ‘The voice of the French must be heard and respected…Only you can convince your majority not to shirk this historic responsibility. And only you have the power to call on the people to solemnly express their sovereignty in a referendum.’
Reminding Macron that article three of the constitution states that national sovereignty ‘belongs to the people, who exercise it through their representatives and by referendum’, the letter challenged its recipient to face down those in his party, including his prime minister, who support mass immigration.
These immigration-supporting politicians, along with most of the cultural and media elite, are in the minority. A poll published in Thursday’s Le Figaro revealed that 72 per cent of people canvassed are in favour of a referendum, 74 per cent back quotas and 79 per cent believe that asylum seekers should be required to lodge their application before arriving in France.
As Le Figaro said in their editorial, these are numbers that can no longer be ignored. If they are, warned the paper, and the minority continue their ‘moral intimidation’ of the majority, then the rise of Marine Le Pen will continue.
There have been ten referendums in the 65-year history of the Fifth Republic but none since 2005 when the establishment put the EU Constitution to the vote and suffered a shock defeat. Successive presidents have since shied away from consulting the people. Four of those ten referendums were during the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, who once proclaimed that ‘in France the best Supreme Court is the people’.
It is surely time the people were consulted on the most contentious issue of the age. To deny them a voice would not only be unwise but undemocratic.
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