Think of the greatest French football players. Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Karim Benzema, Kylian Mbappe, Patrick Viera, Lilian Thuram, Paul Pogba or even Michel Platini (Italian ancestry) and Antoine Griezmann (German ancestry) were all non-native French immigrants.
Les Bleus (the French football team) embarked on an unprecedented and winning formulation of Black-Blanc-Beur (Black, White, Arab) which soon saw them emerge as a football major with the inclusion of immigrants. Today, it is amongst the most consistent teams after having won the Football World Cup in 1998 and 2018 (runner’s up in 2006 and 2022) and is currently ranked second in FIFA World rankings, above traditional powerhouses like Brazil. With twothird of Les Bleus attributed to immigrant backgrounds, it is a ‘Mini-UN’ of football talent.
However, most of societal unrest, violence and terror-attacks in France can also be traced back to immigrant communities. There are, therefore, visible optics of both contribution and dissonance to French society. Globally, immigration is a sensitive subject wherein ‘natives’ tend to think in simplistic binaries of black or white, whereas the reality is always greyer with both benefits and issues of immigration.
There is also the additional tendency of ignoring history and context whilst deciding if immigration has been beneficial or a curse. In an increasingly polarised world fed on daily doses of hatemongering, divisive politics and inaccurate or inflammatory information, nuance is lost. Many in India are pointing to France as an allusory case of ‘too much democracy’ or ‘takeover by immigrants’ as fitting a topical and partisan line here. But the short history of the Indian experiment in democracy is instructive on ‘too much democracy’.
As the Churchillian aphorism goes, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…” Hard data (not bombast) suggests that India’s best socioeconomic growth happened whenever it adopted openness, inclusivity and transparency. This is not to suggest the much-bandied ‘appeasement’, but the basic dignity of inclusivity, equality and the celebration of diversity as strength.
So why did (and continuing) France accept immigrants? Simply because it makes immense economic sense to do so, as without an immigrant workforce, France wouldn’t have become a first world country. Most people forget that it is the immigrants who plough the metaphorical ‘fields’ and contribute with competencies that may be lacking locally (think of Indian immigrants and their invaluable contribution to US, UK etc.).
On the fear of ‘takeover by immigrants’ recklessly fanned by nativist politics on the rise, cold facts suggest differently. As dictated by economics, France stopped taking in significant number of immigrants from its former colonies after its economic growth story slowed down in the mid-1970s. Advent of the right-wing and majoritarian National Rally (ironically owing to economic slowdown) pandered to latent racism, populism and ignorance by conflating all issues facing France solely to immigration.
This even though France had a lower immigrant percentage (10 per cent) as compared to say a Germany (16 per cent), and the immigrant growth rate in the last decade in Germany or UK is more than double that of France. But since the extreme right parties are setting the political debate and fuelling electoral passions, facts matter less. ‘Identity’ debate peppered with unfounded fears of demographic change are drowning conversations around more important issues like the French economy, which is made to suffer protectionist passions like the disastrously exclusivist Brexit across the channel.
Racism is also implicit when immigration is simplistically assumed to have a denominational religion, obliterating any reference to larger number of recent immigrants from Europe itself e.g., Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and more recently, Ukraine. Like all former colonists, the French saga is one of brutal occupation, suppression and discrimination. Many of the early immigrants (non-Europeans) came as labour from these Francophone colonies to do the jobs which the average French refused. Additionally, some like the equally discriminated pieds-noirs (‘black feet’ or European French born in colonies like Algeria during colonial times), were repatriated after decolonization started. The overwhelming majority of immigrants didn’t sneak into France, but were brought in for a purpose by the French. It wasn’t necessarily out of humanitarian concern as presumed under liberal democracies, as even during the recent Syrian migration, it was Germany and other neighbouring countries who accommodated refugees, not France.
Immigrants are not ‘taking over’ France factually, and their percentage to the total population may also be declining. That said, many have brought in alien cultural-religious sensibilities and even intransigence to adapt to the French ways ~ and the situation has only worsened with undeniable racism, discrimination and denialism thrust on immigrants, in the manner of unapologetic colonists. While those immigrants peddling in religious extremism and violence ought to be handled with a firm hand, the conjoining of the entirety of immigrants to such extremism is bereft of facts and is a wholly political/partisan spiel.
The ‘cost’ of dark French history afflicted on the populace from former colonies is not even spoken about when talking about immigrants running riot and ‘taking over’. Certainly, there is a case for insisting on French ways but with due dignity, sensitivity and a sense of history that besets the immigrants and their traditional ways. Patent French racism onto even other Europeans can never be overstated, let alone on immigrants.
To expect an immigrant to do only second-class jobs (now questioning those also, as unemployment soars) and to live perpetually in second-class banlieues is unfiltered supremacism and reflective of a colonial mindset. All immigrants have natural religio-cultural attachments to the land of their ancestors and to say that immigrants do not know the national anthem or do not look like the majority, is unhinged partisanship.
One look at any India-England cricket match at Lords with the overwhelming ‘blue wave’ of Indian T-shirts and flags (presumably filled with British citizens of Indian ethnicity) ought to explain the emotional context ~ just as French Algerians naturally take to flying Algerian flags with similar pride. ‘Othering’ of immigrants with selective social-media forwards makes for convincing politics, but not for secure and prosperous communities.
France is an example of how immigrants can make the French flag fly high, as well as reposing collateral responsibility onto immigrants to respect and uphold the ways of the adopted land. Rioting and violence cannot be justified, as one wrong cannot justify another. Sadly, both ‘natives’ and immigrants have failed in equal measure and only the side with the louder voice monopolises the argument. Reality is always more complex and nuanced.
(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)