Immigration security

France Struggles With Its Immigrants In The Midst Of National Security Concerns

When French President Emmanuel Macron recently visited Calais, he defended his immigration policies. Talking about the 100,000 new asylum claims filed in France last year, he made a distinction in his speech between economic migrants and refugees fleeing persecution. His message was balanced yet firm. He asserted that economic migrants should be turned back, while genuine refugees allowed to stay.

Following terrorist attacks in France two year ago, a sharp debate about immigration broke out. In addition to the National Front that never misses an opportunity to express its anti-immigrant views politically, Eric Zammour, a prominent French figure, ignited considerable controversy on television and radio programs in which he blamed all the troubles of France on French Muslim communities, particularly from North Africa, even though only 2.4 percent of the French population are originally from Maghrebian countries.