The deputies of the Nupes observe a minute of silence after the knife attack in Annecy, in Paris, on June 8, 2023. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
The tragedy in Annecy, on June 8, brought the question of immigration back to the center of the debate. A 31-year-old Syrian seeking political asylum in France who attacks and injures four young children with a knife, in a public park: the news item, terrible, aroused national excitement, relaunching the battle between left, right and extreme right. Immediately, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally (RN), urged “restrict the right of asylum” and the president of the Les Républicains party, Eric Ciotti, at “break with immobility” facing “migratory chaos”.
To the left, the first secretary of the Socialist Party (PS), Olivier Faure, has, conversely, called not to “instrumentalize”nor to “to generalize”. And the deputy of La France insoumise (LFI) in Seine-Saint-Denis Clémentine Autain rose up against this “surge of xenophobic discourse”.
As usual, the left, often accused of angelism or laxity by its opponents on the right and the extreme right, has mobilized its humanist and anti-racist reflexes to respond to the problem of immigration, but without venturing into -of the. “The French have the impression that the left is fleeing this subject, that it is an unthought”, testifies Brice Teinturier, Deputy CEO of the polling institute Ipsos. Left-wing parties seem to be afraid of appearing out of step with their electorate while public opinion as a whole has grown tense in recent years. “Half of the people on the left can approve of tougher reception conditions for foreigners in France”, notes Brice Teinturier. The other side of the coin, by giving the impression “to have ideas that it does not ume, the left has lost the ideological battle”, believes political scientist Rémi Lefebvre.
A meeting in the utmost discretion
But at a time when Marine Le Pen continues to gain strength four years from the presidential election of 2027, this supposed ” denial » is no longer tenable. The executive launched in the fall an immigration bill, providing for both regularizations on the trades in tension and a hardening of the conditions of reception of foreigners. Even if the government of Elisabeth Borne seeks to negotiate with the right on this text expected before the summer, her spokesperson, Olivier Véran, urged the left not to stay “outside of this debate”.
In the greatest discretion, around fifteen deputies and senators met on May 31 in the bat of Bourbon, the brerie which adjoins the National embly, at the invitation of the former director of the French Protection Office Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra), Pascal Brice, and the former referent of the CGT on migrant workers, Marilyne Poulain. This discreet meeting was intended to “offer convergence to parliamentarians in the face of a political debate that worries us”explains Mr. Brice, president of the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS) which brings together more than 800 structures fighting against exclusion.
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