A whiff of racism in France

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 16

A whiff of racism in France

From “The Economist,” London

Just as the Mitterrand Government thought it was quietly getting to grips with the difficult issue of immigration, a local election has thrust race into the forefront of French politics. The immediate trouble began when some 1750 voters backed the anti-immigrant and far-Right National Front in the first round of polling for a new municipal council in Dreux, 50 miles west of Paris.

In numerical terms, this was hardly a political earthquake. The Dreux election, none the less, has excited national attention. Not only was the 16.7 per cent of the vote which the National Front obtained the largest share the party had ever won, but the electioneering itself was unusually nasty. The Dreux campaign also split the conservative opposition on how far it should ally itself with a racialist party. Immigration has been building up as a political issue in France all year. The figures are disputed but a common estimate is that France has 4 million immigrants, half of whom have jobs. The 1.8 million immigrants from southern Europe outnumber the 1.4 million from France’s former colonies in north Africa, but anti-immigrant feeling is directed at the Arabs. Racial tension boils up in the tower blocks on housing estates or in city slums where the north Africans and their French-born children live. The immigrants do

jobs that many of the French refuse and they occupy most of the country’s sub-standard housing. Right-wing politicians attack them as welfare scroungers, as creators of unemployment for the French and as parents of hooligan children who menace the social peace. The National Front has been sounding such themes since it was set up in 1972 by Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, a former supporter of Algerie Francaise and a one-time national assembly deputy from Paris for the Poujadist movement of Right-wing populists. For years, Mr Le Pen got nowhere, but his speeches have begun to find an echo now with more orthodox politicians. The municipal elections in March showed what a vote-winner the issue of immigration could be. There were racist overtones in the campaigns in several cities. There was no danger of a backlash at the polls since immigrants do not have the vote. Mr Le Pen was elected to a local council in a northern district of Paris. In Toulon, the Mayor, Mr Maurice Arreckx, was re-elected after pledging not to let immigrants turn the port city into “the dustbin of Europe.” In Marseilles, the orthodox Right and Left both campaigned on anti-immigrant, law-and-order themes. The local head of the opposition Rassemblement pour la Republique (R.P.R.) party boasted that he would

bulldoze the Arab ghetto in the centre of the city if his side won. (It narrowly lost.) Dreux emerged from the March campaign as a test case of French voters’ attitudes to immigrants. Local companies had imported thousands of north African workers during the 1960 s and 19705. Dreux has a population of 34,000, a quarter of whom are immigrants. The town is in a largely agricultural region and used to be conservative in its politics. It swung to the Left in the municipal elections of 1977. The Socialist Mayor, Miss Francoise Gaspard, wanted to improve conditions for the immigrants, many of whom live in bleak high-rise estates outside the main town.

Miss Gaspard’s activism produced a reaction. The deputy head of the National Front, Mr JeanPierre Stirbois, moved in to cultivate the discontented. He did not stand in the March election but threw his weight behind the conservative ticket headed by a local banker, Mr Jean Hieaux. In Paris, the R.P.R. leader, Mr Jacques Chirac, spoke out against accepting the support of the National Front. Miss Gaspard squeaked home by eight votes in a poll of 11,816 but a new election was ordered for September because of voting irregularities. This time, Mr Stirbois stood at the head of a list of National Front members and sympathisers. The campaign plunged into the gutter. Rumours were spread that Miss Gaspard had a secret child by a Moroccan father. One of the candi-

dates on Mr Stirbois’s list told a television interviewer that “the immigrant problem is like the Jewish problem.” French municipal elections are held in two rounds, with the top two candidates from the first ballot going on to a run-off. Mr Stirbois could not hope to come first or second in the initial round on September 4, but he could make an impact by equalling the 10 per cent score achieved by Mr Le Pen in Paris in March. This made his support essential if the conservatives were to win the run-off on September 11. Mr Stirbois, a printer who likes to say that Arab immigrants should be sent back to their “shacks” in north Africa, did much better than expected. Mr Le Pen immediately proclaimed that his movement had emerged as a major new force in French politics without which the opposition would be unable to function effectively.

That should have been dismissed as nonsense but the main conservative parties reacted indecisively to Mr Stirbois’s success. When the local Gaullist candidate, Mr Hieaux, agreed to take Mr Stirbois and three of his associates on to the opposition ticket for the run-off ballot, there was not a word of criticism from Mr Chirac. A few voices were raised in protest, notably that of Mrs Simone Veil, the former Health Minister and, according to the opinion polls, the most popular member of the opposition. Most conservative leaders kept silent. Some justified the alliance with the National Front as a purely

electoral convenience. (The opposition list duly swept to victory with 55 per cent of the vote on September 11, giving Mr Stirbois and his associates four seats on the town council.) The Socialists have attacked the Dreux alliance with glee, holding it up as proof that the moderate Right is too prone to make deals with extremists. Mr Chirac shot back that Socialists who governed with Communists were in no position to talk.

Coincidentally, the Cabinet approved measures to crack down on illegal immigrants just before the Dreux election. Document checks will be tightened up. Employers who take on illegal immigrant labour will be subject to fines of up to $5OOO for each infringement.

How effective the measures will be remains to be seen. France has long frontiers and the team of immigrant labour inspectors numbers less than 40.

The political difficulty for the Government (which has hit a new low in the opinion polls) is that immigration is an emotive issue easily exploited by its opponents. Clamping down on illegal immigrants does little to satisfy the large number of French people who profess to dislike Arabs whatever their legal status.

Given a list of measures that could cut unemployment, 51 per cent of those who answered a recent poll opted for repatriation of immigrants. Many probably had voluntary schemes in mind, but others like the slogan, “Send them back.” — Copyright, the “Economist,” London.