Immigration Laws: May, 2002 - Number #8

Jean-Marie Le Pen will face President Jacques Chirac in the final round of France's presidential elections May 5, 2002 after winning 17 percent of the vote on April 21, 2002; Chirac got 20 percent. Le Pen's National Front campaigned on a "French first" platform, arguing that France should drop the Euro and restore the franc, and pull out of the European Union.

Some 400,000 people participated in anti-Le Pen marches in Paris on May 1, 2002, and one million across France. The outpouring of opposition to Le Pen is expected to give Chirac the largest-ever majority for a French president.

Both Le Pen and Chirac focused on how to reduce crime and insecurity: Le Pen promised to build 200,000 more prison cells and reinstate the death penalty. There were 400,000 violent crimes in 2001, up from 100,000 in 1994. Some Le Pen voters said they were sending a message to Chirac that the government had to tackle crime.

Le Pen also promised to deport illegal migrants as well as legal immigrants who commit crimes in France. He said his first priority is to defend poor white families "menaced" by North African immigrants in housing developments around Paris, Lille, Lyon and other big cities. This resonated with some voters because of concerns about immigrant integration, especially of second- and third-generation North African youth. During a televised France-Algeria soccer match in Fall 2001, French-born North Africans booed France's national anthem, La Marseillaise, which unsettled many French.

Le Pen said that France should set up "transit camps" for migrants and organize a special train to transport migrants to Britain. There are an estimated 400,000 unauthorized foreigners in France, which received 47,000 asylum applications in 2001, up from 39,000 in 2000. There were nine leftist Presidential candidates; they collectively received 43 percent of the vote, led by 16 percent for Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. Opinion polls had placed Chirac and Jospin in a neck-to-neck race, with Le Pen a distant third. Some analysts noted that voters across Europe seem to be voting right, with Italy, Denmark and Portugal voting in right-oriented parties, and the Netherlands and Germany potentially swinging to the right.

Le Pen received the most votes in neighborhoods near concentrations of immigrants, especially in northeastern and southeastern France, including 23 percent of the vote in Marseilles, France's second-largest city. The Marseille leader of the National Front said: "Insecurity is the worry No. 1 of the French people -- and the advantage of Le Pen is that he has been talking about this for 15 years, while the others were saying that the crime problem is a fantasy and that he's paranoid."

Le Pen supporters said: "People see that special programs and benefits are devised for the areas where immigrants live, but proper Frenchmen get nothing." French citizens and immigrants receive essentially equal treatment from the government, but the National Front argues that, because foreigners have larger families and lower incomes, they get more government services. Areas regarded as "difficult neighborhoods" - usually immigrant areas -- get substantial government subsidies for education, job training and community development.

Suburbs. Le Pen's success led to many profiles of immigrant communities, often high-rise apartment buildings that were hastily constructed in suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s that now have few jobs and high crime rates. In Les Bosquets (The Copses) outside Paris, the unemployment rate is 50 percent, and crime is rampant, with police unwilling or unable to prevent second- or third-generation French citizens of North African descent from terrorizing neighbors.

Interviews with residents reveal that many feel France owes them a debt because their parents came as guest workers, or because they arrived from former French colonies and they complain of racism in France. One Malian noted that French law has been adapted to accommodate homosexual unions, but not polygamy. Muslims are 10 to 15 percent of France's 59 million residents, and many complain of discrimination.

Between 1973 and 2002, the city of Calais, with 78,000 residents, elected Communist mayors, making it the biggest French city controlled by Communists. In the April 21, 2002 elections, Calais moved from the far left to the far right, as Le Pen won 18 percent of the vote, Chirac won 17 percent, and the Communist Party candidate got nine percent. Similarly, Le Pen received 25 percent of the vote in Hautmont, which attracted migrants from North Africa in the 1960s and 1970s for its metal works, and now has high unemployment.

France's racial tensions are linked to high unemployment, especially among low-skilled workers. There is a belief among working-class French that the country's 4.3 million immigrants are taking their jobs. Unemployment among non-EU foreigners, mostly Africans and Turks, was 25 percent in 2001, compared to the national average of 8.8 percent. A Harris poll in March 2000 found that 60 percent of French residents agreed that there were too many people of "foreign origin" in France: 63 percent said there were too many Arabs, and 38 percent said there were too many blacks

An increase in anti-Semitic attacks has generated a fortress mentality among the Jewish community of 700,000. Some North African youth believe they can defend Palestinians by targeting symbols of Judaism.