WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #336 - Politics, Equals, equals, no one is illegal - Immigration bill: bump or die! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The new "asylum and immigration" bill presented to the Council of Ministers in

February is Macron's second reform on the subject since his first election... and
follows the same logic as the previous one: exploit and deport. ---- In 2018, the
Collomb law doubled the maximum duration of confinement of foreigners in a
detention center, increasing it from 45 to 90 days. The reform came, in addition,
to generalize the bans on the return to France of expelled persons. Since then,
foreigners have been impacted by the Covid crisis, a pretext for the closure of
borders, a long freeze on the issuance of visas (for family reunification in
particular) and the transformation of prefectures into fortresses by the
digitization of procedures. . Recent years have also been marked by the serious
accidents of many undocumented workers on construction sites, including the sites
of the future Olympic Games and greater Paris. A worker thus lost his life on a
construction site in Montreuil in 2021.

Despite appearances, the new bill does not change the situation. It does provide
for the creation of a residence permit to regularize workers in so-called "in
tension" trades, which is already making the right and the far right scream (who
say they fear "massive regularization"). However, this measure will certainly not
allow massive regularization of undocumented people, since the residence permit
will only be granted to people who have been present for more than three years,
and who have worked for at least eight months during the two years preceding
their application. ... Undocumented workers in the famous so-called "short-term"
occupations will therefore always be at the mercy of the bosses for at least
three years before being able to apply for a residence permit. The main
difference with the current framework will be that the issuance of the
"short-term occupations" title will no longer require an employer's written
promise to hire. And even obtained, this regularization will only give the right
to a temporary card for one year, and it will be necessary to work to renew it...
the situation of the "happy few" will remain very precarious. And for all the
people working in the other sectors, nothing changes.

In short, this measure divides and makes undocumented workers even more
precarious according to their sectors of activity. It was also largely inspired
by employers in key sectors of the economy who have been complaining for several
months in the newspapers about the lack of available labour.

Regularization: No, it's not a favour!
In reality, this small breach in the wall only confirms the logic of exploitation
of "illegals": to hope to obtain papers, they and they must work illegally for
the benefit of their bosses and the State, without social security or social
benefits, corvéable according to the goodwill of the companies. Some other parts
of the text show that meeting labor needs is indeed the central concern, such as
the creation of a "talent passport" for the "medical and pharmaceutical
professions" (new variant of chosen immigration). Another change is that asylum
seekers, who have until now been prohibited from working while their file is
being examined, will now be able to engage in salaried work during this period...
But will risk, if the text is adopted in its current version, expulsion upon
rejection of the application.

And expulsion, let's talk about it!
In addition to systematizing the expulsion of people whose asylum application has
been rejected, the text provides for facilitating the expulsion of those who are
considered to constitute a "threat to public order", a very vague and scalable.
The Minister of Justice, associated with the drafting of the bill, even proposed
extending the scope of application of inadmissibility measures (ITF), sentences
pronounced by judges and not by the administration, hitherto reserved for
foreigners convicted of particularly serious crimes. Unsurprisingly, Darmanin
plays on the usual ground of the right and the extreme right by associating
immigration and delinquency. We don't even know if it's out of conviction or with
the simple objective of rallying the voices of right-wing parliamentarians...
Whereas if foreigners are over-represented in the crime figures, they are so
mainly for offenses related to the right of residence, and because, being often
racialized, they are more often checked than white people, and therefore more
often convicted.

In parallel with the bill, the ministry plans to create, by 2026, 300 places of
confinement in administrative detention centers (CRA), where violence and abuse
flourish away from the cameras. Two centers will be built in Gironde and in
Loiret, and the two CRAs in Paris and Mesnil-Amelot will be enlarged.

This reform, we do not want it!
Behind the apparent contradiction between regularization and expulsion, the text
is ultimately very coherent: in France, there is no place for non-productive
people! He will arrive in the Senate in March, then in the National Assembly in
May; in the meantime, it is likely to be widely modified over the negotiations
between the majority and the opposition - Darmanin having notably mentioned the
possibility of establishing quotas on regularizations. In any case, the
government intends to force it through as quickly as possible: the examination of
the text is under accelerated procedure, thus limiting it to a single reading by
the Senate and then the National Assembly.

Faced with their logic of sorting and capitalist exploitation, our demands remain
unchanged: regularization of all undocumented people, closure of CRAs, stop of
expulsions, and equal rights between French and foreigners. Several
demonstrations are now being organized in front of various detention centers, and
a mobilization is being organized at the beginning of March at the call of many
immigration collectives and associations - including the United Collective
against Disposable Immigration (UCIJ) and Solidarity March. Let's join all the
actions that will be held locally, let's create them, and work for the
convergence between our struggles. Against the pension reform, against the
immigration bill, against the exploitation of everyone, we fight together, we
will win together!

Clems (UCL Saint-Denis)

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Projet-de-loi-immigration-bosse-ou-creve
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