Paris to pay immigrants to return

 

The British economy has been doing really well as a result of immigration. We need young workers to support an aging population. France wants to encourage future citizens to leave.

France has said it plans to offer incentives to more immigrants – especially those from Africa – to return home voluntarily.

New Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux said a family with two children would be paid 6,000 euros (£4,068) to return to their country.

In 2005-2006, a similar scheme was taken up by some 3,000 families.

BU is interested in this story because so many people from our Caribbean region have emigrated to so many countries around the world to create and grab opportunities to secure their financial futures. The idea of offering money to immigrants to return from whence they came appears generous on the surface. Below the surface though, it must be a degrading feeling to know that a country to which you travelled to meet high order expectations, would offer such a meager sum to entice your return home, in this case Africa. What makes this situation all the more interesting is that many of the so called developed countries have been built on the backs of immigrant labour. Movement of people from the developing world to develop countries has always existed to ensure that there was equilibrium in the global workforce and at BU we feel that it has satisfied a social cause. Today in a world which is being built on a key tenet of “Globalization” the action of the French is very puzzling.

We suspect that the French have overreacted to the immigrant tension which escalated a couple years ago. It seems that the world is changing and France is a country which has not been afraid to take controversial policy positions regarding the governance of its country. The big question is whether other develop countries will join in the anti-immigrant sentiment.

We do not think it is that outlandish a thought.