French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a new migration policy bill which will be proposed next January. This law would expand the provisions for deporting migrants who “disturb public order”.
According to French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, the bill “suggests a tough approach to foreign criminals. All foreigners who have committed serious offences in France will be deported.” The minister added that this would be the “toughest” immigration law ever in effect in France.
However, the new bill doesn’t only provide for the deportation of criminal offenders. Another article in the law allows the government to place migrants who have been denied asylum on criminal wanted lists. Given that the authorities dictate who is granted asylum and who is refused, the bill in practice means that any “disadvantageous” migrant can be legally deported from France, and marked as a criminal.
Darmanin divided migrants into two groups: good and bad migrants. He says, “We must be kind to good migrants and return evil to the evil of bad migrants.” The category of “good” migrants includes all those who “came to help us develop our country.” More specifically, it refers to migrants ready to work in the “demanded” sectors of the capitalist economy and sell their labour for comparatively low wages. On the contrary, people who are less beneficial to French capitalism can easily be classified as “bad migrants” and deported from the country.
There are also reasons to believe that the category of “unworthy” migrants may include representatives of certain “suspicious” ethnic groups and those who are unable to work.
This legislative effort reveals the gross hypocrisy of the right-wing liberal regimes across Europe. While loud declaring their battle for “human rights” and sympathy for refugees, liberal governments, in practice, treat migrants (as well as their native population and homeland) as objects for exploitation. Under capitalism, a person is valuable only to the extent that he creates profit for the ruling class. Under socialism, on the contrary, each person is valued as a human being and is free to reveal his or her true potential, without competition over available employment or conflict over race and creed.