[We are reproducing with her permission the text from La Tribune by Michèle Tribalat available at the address: http://www.micheletribalat.fr/453469042]
This is a botched column that does not hide its bias. As usual, there are many errors and inaccuracies, even if I have not checked all the figures because I feel like I am wasting my time, given the lack of interest in France for their accuracy. Particularly in the media in general and in Le Monde in particular. The latter likes François Héran's message so much that he is unable, despite his army of fact-checkers, to even notice the contradictions from one column to another. I refer, for those interested, to the previous column published in Le Monde the 27 April 2020[1].
As usual, the professor at the Collège de France does not bother with details when it comes to figures. He first goes to look, one believes when reading him, for those of the United Nations on the proportion of immigrants[2] in the countries of the world to situate France in 2000 and 2020. But without specifying that the definition of the United Nations is not that of France. France does not count as immigrants the French born French abroad, a good proportion of whom are repatriated, particularly from Algeria. Thus, the United Nations indicates a population of international migrants of 8,5 million (M) in mid-2020, while that of immigrants at the beginning of 2020 was 6,8 M (all of France) according to INSEE.
Let us quote precisely what François Héran writes in Le Monde :
« From 2000 to 2020, according to UN compilations, the share of immigrants in the world population has increased by 62%. Unsurprisingly, this groundswell also affects the European continent: +60%. The regions of Europe that have experienced the largest relative increases in immigrant populations since 2000 are Southern Europe (+181%), the Nordic countries (+121%), the United Kingdom and Ireland (+100%), Germany and Austria (+75%), followed by the rest of Western Europe (excluding France): +58%. On the other hand, the increase is small in ex-communist Central Europe (+12%) » (I emphasize).
I haven't looked into all the numbers in detail, but a few[3]. Thus the number of international migrants increased from 173,2 million in 2000 to 280,6 million in 2020, an increase of +62%. But their share increased from 2,8% to 3,6%, an increase of 29%. So, contrary to what François Héran writes, it is not the share but the absolute number that is in question in his column. Which is obviously not the same thing due to global population growth. I checked that this was indeed the case for France and Austria-Germany. The figures cited correspond to the change in the number of international migrants.
Without specifying it, François Héran continues on to the proportion of immigrants in France in 2021 according to, this time, the French definition:
"In this European table, France occupies a position well below the average: + 36% of immigrants in the space of twenty years (with or without overseas). Immigrants today represent 10,3% of the population in our country, according to INSEE."
The increase in the immigrant population in the French definition is much stronger than that of the foreign-born, due to the deaths of repatriates who arrived a long time ago. If we look at the evolution from 1999 to 2019, in 20 years, the immigrant population in France (in the French definition) has increased by 54%.
One thing and its opposite, but to convey the same message
What follows is even more disturbing if we make the effort to compare it to what François Héran wrote in his book, With immigration, Measure, debate, act, published in 2017[4]Different words, but to serve the same idea: French politicians cannot do anything against immigration, not because they do not want to but because it is impossible.
We will compare the new argument to the one from 2017[5].
2022:
"The rise began in 2000, after the long stagnation of the years 1974-1999. Nicolas Sarkozy slowed the trend a little, but without reversing it. It followed its course from one presidency to another. It is therefore absurd, as we read here and there, to attribute the rise in immigration to the last president: none of them was able to counteract a development that was part of a global dynamic."
2017:
« After growing strongly during the 1990s, their number has fluctuated around 2002 people per year since 200. »[6] ; " out of fourteen years of stability of 200 legal entries of extra-European migrants, nine took place under the direct authority of Nicolas Sarkozy »[7] ; " How does the former Prime Minister [François Fillon, presidential candidate] explain the remarkable stability of the 200 residence permits issued each year under his government?[8] ?».
And so that everyone can judge for themselves, here follow two graphs representing the evolution of the proportion of immigrants since 1990 and that of the number of first residence permits issued in metropolitan France by the Ministry of the Interior to nationals of countries outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland, to which François Héran referred in 1.
In 2017, François Héran had therefore invented a stability of the flow to incriminate the inability of François Fillon (who was running in the presidential election) to make it decrease in order to... in 2022, to face the evidence of an increase traced in the share taken by immigrants in the population. This time, he underlines the same inability of all the presidents of the Republic to act on this trend, even if he agrees to recognize a slight slowdown during the time of Nicolas Sarkozy! If it was necessary to ridicule Nicolas Sarkozy, but especially François Fillon, in 2017, it is necessary to spare Emmanuel Macron in 2022. We cannot incriminate this president since the growth of foreign immigration escapes him, as it escaped his predecessors. In 2017, he invited us to deal with immigration by naturalizing it: we could no more prevent foreigners from entering than children from being born. In 2022, it is little France that cannot, on its own, stand up to an irreversible global dynamic.
It should be noted that, for François Héran in 2017, foreign immigration had " strongly believed " in the 1990s, while that of 2020 finally recognizes the " long stagnation " of the proportion of immigrants during the last quarter of the 20th centuryrd century, including during the 1990s. With François Héran, everything seems to be a matter of circumstances.
Evolution of the proportion of immigrants (%) in France (with Mayotte since 2014) from 1990 to 2021.
Source: Insee, provisional data for 2020 and 2021.
Evolution of the number of first residence permits issued to nationals of countries outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland from 1 to 2002 (p for provisional) in mainland France.
Source: Ministry of the Interior.
Everyone is wrong except François Héran, right?
He then examines the issuing of residence permits (these are in fact the first residence permits issued in metropolitan France to nationals of countries outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland) by the Ministry of the Interior. Apparently, no one except him has understood the evolution!
Yet, here again, he is wrong. He claims that "Their number increased by 37% from 2005 to 2021 ", while it was 164 in 234 and estimated at 2005 in 270. An increase of 925%.
He mocks those who imagine that it is family immigration that has increased a lot (while it has, he says, declined) and proceeds to calculate the share taken by different motives in the increase. An increase, I quote, " which is explained 54% by student migration, 27% by work migration (recently revived by the "talent passport") and 24% by refugee migration (the least we can do in the current context) » He seems to forget that, when there are increases and decreases summarized by an overall increase, it is impossible to do the calculation he does. Indeed, 54% + 27% + 24% = 105%! The figures he then cites are also wrong, which becomes tedious. For example, the ministry estimated, for 2021, the number of family members of foreigners grouped together at 29 and not 301 people, or 12% of the first titles of the year and not 000%. It is true that the number of first titles issued to students has increased significantly and rivals, in recent years, that of first titles issued for family reasons (it probably even exceeded it in 11). The latter weigh less but their number is still high (graph below).
Evolution from 2007 to 2021 of the number of first residence permits issued to nationals of third countries in the European Economic Area and Switzerland from 1 to 2002 (p for provisional), for family reasons, in mainland France.
Source: Ministry of the Interior.
François Héran also mocks those who think that the regularisation of illegal workers, as envisaged by the government, could create "a pull factor" due to the lack of attractiveness of France, as demonstrated by those camping in Calais in the hope of reaching the United Kingdom, and the low attractiveness of France within the European Union. He forgets that when we regularise workers, we open the door to family reunification with illegals who are no longer illegal. Furthermore, he is wrong, here again, when he situates France " 25th among European countries for the proportion of immigrants born in the Union. » As indicated in the table below taken from the Eurostat database, France ranks 15rd rank.
Population born in other EU27 countries (number and %) in each EU27 country in 2021.
Source: Eurostat
Le Monde is very pleased with François Héran's platform which has really debunked, as they say, so-called received ideas and highlighted, " figures to support it, to what extent immigration is limited in France, well below the place occupied by this subject in the public space " (I underline). François Héran speaks of immigration in this way to say that we talk about it too much and badly, he who speaks about it so well. He takes the opportunity to give some advice to the government. " Faced with this real denial of immigration, just as there are denials of pregnancy "It is time," he said, "to change the narrative resolutely. It is understandable that he is more concerned with the narrative than with the facts given the extent of his disagreement with the figures.
Isn't the professor at the Collège de France trying to deny the pregnancy?
