The massive exodus of 65 million people worldwide is one of the most serious problems of our time. We feel like we are on the front line. But poor countries in Africa and the Middle East are home to more than half of those uprooted, Europeans less than a quarter. However, migrants and refugees arrive at our borders. The country is divided between desire and the fear of welcoming them.
For forty years, laws have piled up. Those of 2015 and 2016 are not yet all applied a new law is looming. What rhyme this frenzy of laws, if not to demonstrate their inefficiency?
We want to combine humanity and security, reception and expulsions. While some measures will improve the protection of refugees, others will degrade it. Thus, as it stands, many will not have enough time to complete their asylum application.
It would not be acceptable for the fate of these migrants and refugees to depend on fears or political calculations. They must be treated as people, with dignity. Much remains to be done. No law is needed to stop unworthy reprisals against them, nor to meet their vital needs in the dead of winter. Let’s stop confiscating their tents in Calais! Let’s build more foster homes on the German model where they will be protected, will learn our language.
Development and training
More than a new law, we especially need a new approach. Pope Francis invites, like the United Nations preparing a global pact on migration. This is all the more necessary as the migratory pressure will increase towards Europe. If nothing is done to develop Africa so poor, its demographic explosion will push its youth overflowing towards Europe rich and aging.
Expelling is not the solution. On the other hand, promoting development and training would be effective. Let’s take development aid to its expected level without delay. Let’s invent migratory routes to train those who knock on our doors and allow them to head back to the country and develop it. Let us generalize the twinning between the communes of France and Africa for the rural development. Part of this youth would discover that its future is in Africa more than in Europe.
But the reception of migrants must not be to the detriment of the populations of the host countries (France). They must not be made scapegoats for economic, social, cultural and political concerns. It is therefore high time to think about what our society wants to become. This will facilitate integration and open a different path than the fallback.
Parliamentarians will bear a heavy responsibility in the debate that will open Free, attentive to reality, inventive, they will then be able to pioneer new paths of encounter, mutual respect and harmony. Cutting the grass under the feet of the demagogues, the young assembly will have rendered a great service to the democracy and humanity of our society.
