Hard-line hangover?

French presidential hopeful, Nicolas Sarkozy, is coming under fire from those nipping at his heals ahead of Sunday's election. It seems as though the hard-line stance he has been advocating throughout the months of campaigning is now beginning to haunt him. Reuters rounds up the criticism Sarkozy's opponents have been lobbing at him over the past few days. The socialist camp of Segolene Royal and the centrist circles of Francois Bayrou are “portraying him as an agitated, dangerous right-winger,” according to Reuters. Both “say his inability to visit France's multi-ethnic suburbs without a small army of riot police shows he is incapable of being the unifying force a president is supposed to be.”

The truth is that none of the candidates have put forth convincing programs to dismantle the alienation many, predominantly immigrant youths feel in France's high-rise suburban areas, the banlieus.

An article in the New York Times Magazine underlines the potential for violence that still runs as an undercurrent in these areas. As described in my FPA commentary, many of the unemployed youths here feel that “they are unwelcome in a France.”  David Rieff, the author of the NYT Magazine piece agrees with my earlier assessment of the general malaise in these parts of France, where youths feel that the country's “treatment of them, whether hostile or indifferent, utterly contradicts the claim the country makes for itself: that in France everyone is treated equally and that the Republic neither makes nor will accept any distinction between citizens on the basis of race, class or ethnic background.”

Behind the assimilist mantra put forth by every French government since the early seventies lies the reality, which Rieff addresses in his piece:

“There are data that seem to demonstrate that if your name is Mohammed or Fatima, you have less than 50 percent of the chance of being hired than you do if your name is Jean or Marie. The French Republic may proclaim its commitment to equal opportunity, but few French people believe it to be genuine. Abderrahmane Dahmane, who is in charge of the Sarkozy campaign's relations with France's immigrant communities, told me that when a policeman stops an immigrant youth, the youth might say something like "I'm as French as you," and the policeman might agree, but they would both know it wasn't true.”

Sarkozy will not be winning the French Muslim vote on Sunday – that electoral territory has been left largely to Bayrou and Sarkozy's closest rival (according to today's poll figures), socialist Royal. Surprisingly, even Jean-Marie Le Pen is making inroads with this electorate, by doing what Sarkozy might be afraid to do, following his disparaging remarks about migrant youths in 2005: Le Pen has been to the banlieus as part of his campaign. His campaign-manager daughter has promised all French citizens, regardless of skin color, greater acceptance and a better life. This slight modification in the Le Pen program might have an effect at the ballot boxes on Sunday, but Bayrou seems to be the leading candidate among the French Muslim community, in part for his strong commitment toward a roots-causes approach to migration and greater aid promised to North African countries.

Rieff's article quotes Lhaj Breze, the head of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France: Breze smiled wanly: "I'm afraid you won't find a single young French Muslim who will vote for him (Sarkozy) . No one is yet willing to forgive him. As far as they are concerned, what he said at the time of the riots ‚ as well as his closeness to America's policy in the Middle East, which is very important to the Muslim community in France ‚ makes him unacceptable to them."

Sadly, whatever the outcome of the vote on Sunday, a real seismic shift in France's immigration policy – one that would address the integration issue in a comprehensive manner – is unrealistic. Should Sarkozy win the second round of the vote, scheduled for May 6, his majority will be a crucial factor against which to predict just how restrictive his new policies on immigration will be. Naturally, the President is not the sole figure of France's executive – the National Assembly will have its voice heard. Analysts predict that despite perhaps being elected on a hard-line ticket, Sarkozy will have to – even if it's just for the sake of keeping the peace – revert to a more conciliatory attitude toward resident legal migrants in France's suburbs.