Politicians In Paris Talk About A Cap On Migration

Alain Rousseau, a French historian, delves into the depths of far-right ideology, which is based on the illusion of the dangers of the predominance of the immigrant race in France over the indigenous population, and it is interesting that such misguided ideas are promoted by a figure who was until recently a moderate, in the form of the current Prime Minister, François Bayrou, who is affiliated with the center movement.

This debate was sparked by the well-known French historian, Alain Rousseau, in a lengthy article that began with a statement by Prime Minister François Bayrou that “foreign contributions are positive for the (French) people, provided they do not exceed a certain percentage,” the old theory of the threshold of tolerance, according to the historian.
When such racist rhetoric comes from a centrist politician, it means that spaces have disappeared between political families in France when it comes to migrants.

The far right promotes black propaganda targeting foreigners, using frightening phrases such as “the great replacement”, referring to the predominance of the immigrant race at the expense of French people of French origin, a policy that is being pursued today by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, charged with the backgrounds of the past inherited from the period before March 19, 1962.

In the article published by the Society for Colonial and Postcolonial History, Alain Rousseau asks, “What is the essence of the French race? Is it Christian? Is it white? Can the expatriate element affect the French identity?” These questions have been debated by French politicians and intellectuals.

The author notes that the roots of far-right xenophobic thought in France emerged in the eighteenth century, when the number of black slaves taken by their masters to the mainland and sometimes left behind was only a few thousand, the king’s prosecutor at the French Admiralty Court considered that the image of France was threatened, while colonized immigrants were seen as an invasion, and therefore equivalent to a loss of identity.

Over time, the focus shifted to North African immigrants, with thousands arriving in France, especially after World War I, in search of work and livelihood, as they came under French control.
Interestingly, according to Alain Rousseau, there are those who propagate that the exit of de Gaulle’s France from Algeria was due to the general’s fear of what he called “total assimilation”, i.e. the melting of the white European people among the arrivals.

The historian quotes General de Gaulle: “It is very good to have French zero, French black, French brown. They show that France is open to all races, that it has a universal mission. But only if they remain a small minority. Otherwise, France will no longer be France. We are, above all, a European people of white race, of Greek and Latin culture, of Christianity. Don’t let anyone tell us stories!”

Official documents issued by the French authorities in 1970 indicate that the maximum number of foreign residents in French social housing should not exceed 15 percent, before the matter developed three years later in a disgusting manner, as former French President Georges Pompidou spoke that Algerians and Moroccans had become an issue, and in 1983, former Prime Minister Michel Debré wondered if immigration was an invasion?

These ideas have formed a fertile ground for far-right thought, which has become unjustifiably attacking immigrants, including those with French citizenship, as if they were second-class French, and even went so far as to form a racist anti-immigrant political party, under the name “Redemption Party”, headed by Eric Zemmour, who belongs to the extreme far-right.

The word “reclamation” carries serious connotations that France has fallen into the hands of immigrants, especially Algerians as the most numerous community, and must be reclaimed from their hands, which means, among other things, expelling them and sending them back to where they came from, yet this party is legal and participated in the recent legislative elections, although it did not achieve significant results.