socialmedian: Sarkozy's tough talk on French identity

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Sarkozy's tough talk on French identity | Jim Wolfreys

Source: The Guardian

Nov 06, 2009

Summary

Pandering to rightwing fears of immigration to France will only obscure the real issues of poverty, racism and inequality

Announcing plans for a debate on national identity, France's immigration minister, Eric Besson, underlined the thinking behind the project. "We should never have abandoned to the Front National (FN) a certain number of values that belong to our Republican heritage," he said, before expressing his desire for "the political death" of Jean-Marie Le Pen's party.

In this sense, with regional elections due in March, the debate follows an established pattern whereby mainstream parties of both left and right attempt to establish their get-tough credentials on immigration in the hope of winning over voters attracted by the FN. Midway through his presidency, and with its popularity fading, the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is therefore returning to the issue that established him as an international figure in 2005, when his attacks on the "rabble" that inhabit France's impoverished suburbs sparked a three-week urban uprising during his tenure as interior

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