“If the left is not able to answer the question of immigration, the battle against the extreme right is lost” | EUROtoday

On Apr 12, 2025

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HAS The seek for a 3rd manner. In a “thematic contribution” filed throughout the framework of the Congress of Roses with three different socialists, Bassem Asseh gives its camp to develop a brand new doctrine on immigration. A “regulating and integrative approach” very distinct from the speeches of the acute proper, which “come to touch the very foundations of our republican pact”, as of an ideology “without bordering, which sees immigration as a pure ethical question”.

Accustomed to pointing the unthought, even the contradictions, of part of the progressive camp on the report back to the Republic, the disconnection with the favored lessons or the secularism, the primary deputy to the mayor of Nantes judges on a private choose that “if the left is not capable of answering this question raised by opinion, the battle against the extreme right is lost”. A positioning asserting an evolution of the doctrine of the Socialist Party (PS) or easy swords within the water of a minority development? The level Tops with Bassem Asseh, already the writer of a notice for the Jean Jaurès basis on the topic in 2024.

The level: in your contribution, you imagine that the speech of the left and the PS on immigration is in the present day “inaudible” within the face of “the new cultural hegemony of the extreme right”. For what ?

Bassem Asseh: Immigration has grow to be a flammable topic. As quickly as you place the topic on the desk, everybody feels obliged to be utterly for or utterly in opposition to. As a outcome, the media subject is occupied by those that have essentially the most radical positions. On the one hand, helped by its media firepower, the acute proper and part of the precise assault republican fundamentals comparable to soil legislation. On the opposite, solely a part of the left is audible, which considers that the borders are ineffective and that may are available. In the center, the middle left or the republican left are unable to make a nuanced, practical and credible place heard.

Among nationwide executives, we’re a minority, however are we within the left voters? I’m unsure.Bassem Asseh

Precisely, what can be the “nuanced” path between these two polarities?

In common, one of many nice traits of the left is to wish to set guidelines, for instance on free commerce, social networks or ecology. The left ought to subsequently merely apply to the query of migratory flows its precept of fixing guidelines. It might suggest indicators and assume to work on the standards that make one particular person or might not enter the territory. Once these guidelines are set, you must put the means in order that the reception goes effectively. This requires investing in the whole lot that enables integration: studying the French language, vocational coaching, schooling, consciousness of our important republican ideas. This is why we suggest in our contribution the creation of a ministry of citizenship in order that immigration doesn’t solely rely upon the safety logic of Place Beauvau.

Read too Immigration and nationwide identification: the left in the hunt for a 3rd mannerYou name in your textual content to a multi -year orientation legislation on immigration and integration coverage. Concretely, is it a query of limiting flows by legislation?

The notion of regulation appears to us, as soon as once more, crucial. Among the principles, we are able to for instance set up that in a sector of exercise particularly there’s a want for workforce and that we’ll convey into the territory of people that have enough expertise. But it’s carried out in a deliberate method in order to not arouse distorted competitors between staff and permit those that arrive to learn from the identical wages and different working situations as those that are already on the territory. It is a query of getting out of the liberal logic that simply seeks to stability the provision and demand for labor, with out fascinated by wages or coaching. In actuality, the regulatory discourse shouldn’t be new to the left, it was carried by Jean Jaurès and even Karl Marx.

When you hear this week Laurent Wauquiez’s proposal on sending the OQTF to Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelondo not you inform your self that there isn’t a longer room for public debate for nuanced and reasoned positions on this topic?

Unfortunately, even the precise aligns in the present day with the acute proper positions. In his interview with Jdnewsthe commentators primarily retained Laurent Wauquiez’s proposal on Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon because it appears huge by its absurdity. But in the identical interview, he additionally adopted the thesis of the far -right author Renaud Camus of the “great replacement”, in line with which the French as they’re in the present day can be steadily changed by waves of immigration. What is flawed: after we take a look at the figures, we see that there isn’t a submersion. And to say that doesn’t quantity to denying the frictions that migratory phenomena can generate!

But confronted with this, I’d say that the one battles that we’re certain to lose are those who we don’t lead. If we wish the acute proper to not win, we should cope with the topics that make it rise, be it buying energy, well being, insecurity or immigration. If the left shouldn’t be capable of reply this query raised by opinion, the battle is misplaced.

Read too OQTF: What fly has piqued Laurent Wauquiez? Isn’t Jean-Luc Mélenchon, mainly, the one one on the left to imagine a line on this topic?

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, like the acute proper, an identification strategy to immigration. When he speaks of “creolization” or “new France”, he cynically does it to draw the votes of individuals whose he’s completely hooked up to their identification ensuing from immigration. He tells them “New France is you”, whereas New France have to be all of us!

Jean-Luc Mélenchon thus adopts an strategy much like the 2011 Terra Nova notice by eager to section the voters and entice the favors of the city voters and other people from immigration. By doing this, it essentializes what an immigrant or an immigrant descendant is. It shouldn’t be as a result of we come from this or that place or that our dad and mom or grandparents have this or that tradition that we’ll essentially have this or that opinion. In the Republic, we should not essentialize residents. Since the Revolution, France has been a group of residents.

BSW failure within the final German legislative elections Does he not recommend {that a} left that carries a really agency line on immigration doesn’t permit to get better voters who left on the far proper?

The BSW is outlined each by a Marxist dimension, a really strict, even extreme positioning on immigration, but in addition a pro-Puttine worldwide discourse. I believe that the failure of this celebration, which has gone too far in extra, can also be linked to that. In different international locations, victorious leftist events comparable to Danish socio -democrats or English Labor was fairly clear about the truth that migration guidelines wanted. However, I’m cautious of comparisons from one nation to a different. France has its historic specificities, linked particularly to its colonial historical past.

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Answer

Are you not a minority to put on this line to the PS?

When I communicate with activists of this regulatory strategy and emphasize integration and citizenship, the return could be very optimistic. Nobody jumped round my neck! The scenario is sophisticated, alternatively, it’s true, in relation to main leaders to hold the topic and make it a thematic in its personal proper. So, sure, amongst nationwide executives, we’re a minority, however are we within the left voters? I’m unsure.

https://www.lepoint.fr/politique/si-la-gauche-n-est-pas-capable-de-repondre-a-la-question-de-l-immigration-la-bataille-contre-l-extreme-droite-est-perdue-11-04-2025-2587128_20.php