What do you and your country think is a solution to the ever increasing migration problem?

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And the French paradox is, according to many theoreticians, is to perceive the European feeling according to an oscillation between adherence to the broadcasted values such as “the destiny community” and a deep dissatisfaction about concrete achievements and actors.

Immigration is too easily seen as a cultural or economic problem. The presence of those groups of immigrants has always been controversial about integration both on labour market and social, a lot of immigrants who don’t speak the national language when they arrive and only live into their communities of origin. However, immigrants have a lot to contribute to the French economy, also with their culture, on condition that politics, at Paris as at Calais, design laws which encourage labour and investments. Those from migrant backgrounds have been able to adapt themselves so far to French society. This is most likely due to:

- Industrial work that was a power factor of social integration.

- School, by education through norms and French values but also by professional training.

- Migrants association, such as religious or sporting associations that play an important intermediary role between new arrivals and French society.

- Social, politic and union commitment.

The sociologist Hugues Lagrange, in his work “Le déni des cultures” makes a relation between immigration and delinquency. His approach does not privilege the socio-economic factors (poverty of families) to explain the immigrant delinquency. According to him, families of this youth are in financial difficulties, untrained and with a very limited apprehension of the culture of the host country, which affects the youth through their familial socialization. Thereby, the loss of social ties in some neighbourhoods would be one of the main reasons of jihadist immigration where some would find an opportunity to exist in society (see debate on the deprivation of nationality). To remedy this situation, Lagrange advocates an increase in integration policies, particularly by promoting education and by stopping urban segregation, or guettoization, this phenomenon which cannot possibly erasing the cultural differences.

The crisis that affects Paris, whether it is for economic or political reasons, tends to make people mistrustful about migration. However, I personally believe that further measures should be taken to encourage the reception of migrants that could be an input for the country first to represent our democratic values which are liberty, equality and fraternity. If we don’t integrate them in our society, how they could be integrating by their own?

Two movements may therefore be indispensable in order to reconnect the link between the French and their sense of belonging to the European Union. First of all, it will be appropriate to carry out a mutation of economic Europe towards a social Europe.

We must also begin the transition of this economic Europe to a politic Europe for building the foundation of the participatory democracy such acclaimed by the French people, but also to restore the confidence in the European democratic institutions. This could communally handle the crisis, because I mean by that a European crisis is strongly linked to the migrant crisis.