France inspires world on immigration debate
NEW YORK: Emmanuel Macron is today the most admired world leader among liberals, centrists and cosmopolitans around the globe. He has managed to win the French presidency, enact reforms and stay relatively popu - tively about the free market, the European Union, globalization and trade. He has done all this in the face of a tide of populism that is still surging. What’s his secret? One key area to watch him on is immigration.
On Tuesday, Macron announced yet again that his government would be tougher on immigra and then actually deporting those whose applications were rejected. ( In 2016, France deported less than 20 percent of those denied asylum.) He insisted that he would appear on his watch, referring to the enormous makeshift refugee camp that was cleared in 2016. Macron is being criticized from the left and congratulated by his former opponent in the presidential election, the populist right-wing leader Marine Le Pen.
- dinarily shrewd politician, and has a chance to be one of the great presidents of France’s Fifth Republic. He understands something about the popular mood, and not just within his nation’s Merkel has seen her once skyhigh public support crater over in 2015 to allow in a million refugees, many from Syria. In in which Merkel’s party lost ground and the right-wing AfD won enough votes to enter the polling showed that 90 percent of voters wanted those rejected for asylum to be deported faster, and 71 percent wanted to cap the overall number of refugees.
The central issue feeding populism around the globe is immigration. That’s why you still see right-wing populism in such and Sweden, where economic growth is strong, manufacturing is vibrant, and inequality has not risen dramatically. Donald Trump beat 16 talented Republican candidates because [ my base] want[ s] more than
Meanwhile, Democrats continue to move left on economics, believing that this will make them more credible populists. But polling shows that the public is already with them on economic issues. Where they on immigration. And yet, the the topic than it has ever been.
Positions that dozens of Democratic senators took on immigration 10 years ago are now rejected by almost every party leader. Most have agreed that America’s current and needs to attract more im will speak on the issue. The party suggesting that local authorities should ignore federal laws or even defy federal authorities who try to enforce the law of the land. Imagine if Republican mayors did the same with regard to laws they don’t like on guns or abortions.
on any topic these days, most of all immigration. Trump discusses the issue in ways that seem, to me, racist. Factions of the Republican Party have become ugly and mean- spirited in tone and temper, demeaning immigrants and encouraging nativism and bigotry. To compromise with these kinds of attitudes seems distasteful, even immoral.
And yet, the issue is one that should allow for some sensible middle ground. The late Edward Kennedy was one of the most liberal senators in the country. Sen. John McCain is a staunch conservative. And yet they were able to agree on a set of compromises in the mid-2000s that would have largely resolved America’s immigration deadlock and the rage surrounding it. Canada used to have strong nativist forces within it. But ever since its immigration system moved to a skills- based at celebrating diversity, multi has had few such voices. And this despite the fact that Canada now has a substantially higher percentage of foreign-born residents than the United States.
The scale and speed of immigration over the last few decades is a real issue. Just since 1990, the share of foreign-born people in America has gone from 9 percent to 15 percent. It has nearly in Denmark. Most of the new immigrants do come from cultures that are more distant and different. Societies can only take so much change in a generation. If mainstream politicians do not recognize these realities and insist that those who speak of them are racists, they will only push the public in its desperation which there are many.
(c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group