IMMIGRATION: EUROPEAN AWAKENING AND FRENCH LETHARGY

Alas, the coincidence tells us much about French paralysis on immigration, while Europe and the world are evolving quickly.

Last week, three events in three different countries occurred almost simultaneously.

In the United States, the Supreme Court delivered a spectacular boost to President Trump’s drive to abolish birthright citizenship, despite its constitutional grounding. Although it avoided ruling on the substance, the Court determined that a federal judge has no authority to block a decision by the executive branch nationwide—thus upholding the executive order Trump signed early in his term, which had been challenged repeatedly.

In Germany, at the same time, Friedrich Merz’s right‑left coalition in the Bundestag adopted a sweeping reform of family reunification—long “sacred” under consistent European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence for decades. In France, these reunions account for roughly 90,000 migrants each year, mostly marrying former migrants who have since naturalized.

France hosted the third event last week: Senator Demilly’s bill, passed in the Senate and taken up by Éric Ciotti’s group in the National Assembly, was struck down on June 27 for flimsy procedural missteps. The bill aimed to “ban marriages of persons living illegally in the national territory,” and incidentally to protect mayors who illegally refuse to officiate such weddings. But the Constitutional Council holds that the right to marry is sacred, and “(therefore) not conditional on legal residence.”

This episode reveals the growing discrepancy between France’s institutional gridlock on migration and the changes taking place in most European countries.

This shift stems from the 2015 wave: with Merkel’s blessing at the time, 1.3 million asylum seekers—primarily from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq—flooded into Europe, double the number from the previous year. That same year, Hungary under Viktor Orban erected the first barbed‑wire fence on its Serbian border to block migrants heading to Germany.

Since then, reactions have followed—ironically starting in the most tolerant Northern European countries. Denmark, governed by the left, has outright adopted a zero‑asylum policy, cited as “a model for all Europe” by Germany’s new chancellor.

Symbolizing this evolution, Danish PM Frederiksen traveled to Rome to meet with Italy’s Meloni to draft a joint letter to the Brussels Commission, calling for a revision of the European Convention on Human Rights, which “imposes too many constraints on States and their ability to decide who should be expelled from their territories.”

That letter was co‑signed by Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the three Baltic states, and Poland—but notably not by France.

Like Denmark, Poland has completely suspended the right to asylum—a measure unthinkable in France, which still welcomes 150,000 asylum seekers annually!

Another sign of the times: Denmark, Italy, and other countries—including the UK—are actively seeking third‑country hosts for rejected asylum seekers and other undocumented migrants. The British tried Rwanda, the Italians Albania—an arrangement hailed as “creative” by von der Leyen, who until two years ago championed a Europe‑wide asylum‑immigration pact with heavy financial penalties for States refusing their “quota” of migrants.

Alexander Downer, former Prime Minister of Australia, smiled: “Not so long ago, Europeans called me a fascist, because I expelled illegal arrivals to Papua New Guinea. Now I see them doing the same thing.”

In short: the world changes—but France does not.

Despite an estimated one million undocumented migrants (Interior Ministry estimate) and 147,154 illegal immigrants stopped last year (a 19% increase in one year!); despite around thirty immigration laws adopted over recent years in France, most of which were dismantled by the Constitutional Council…

In truth, there are now two Frances that ignore each other: one that bears the migratory influx—in hospitals, schools, prisons, in growing insecurity and everyday violence—and another that, unperturbed, keeps pontificating.

Thus, from the two editorials published in Le Monde in quick succession by two leading CNRS experts: first, Frank Frazzi accuses France of “trying to domesticate Islam” (whereas it looks quite the opposite!), and second, Sébastien Roché argues that rising violence in France is primarily due to the police themselves and their operational doctrine…

In short: the nightmare continues with immigration in France totally out of control, costing at least 3.4% of GDP according to a recent report, while the population of immigrant origin now represents between one‑quarter and one‑third of the total population… much to Mr. Mélenchon’s delight…

Pierre Lellouche – July 2, 2025