By Brigitte KLINKERT
Minister delegate on Immigration
By Claude TRINK
Engineer from the Corps des Mines
L’immigration est un phénomène mondial et ancien. En France, il a connu au cours de ces dernières années une croissance significative. Mais la multiplicité des procédures et le mode de publication des statistiques rendent difficile la perception de l’ampleur du phénomène. Il est cependant possible de mettre en évidence une structure très déséquilibrée de l’immigration : seule une faible partie des immigrés arrivent pour un motif professionnel ou ont un accès légal au marché du travail. Depuis 2018, des actions beaucoup plus structurées et des dépenses significatives ont été mises en oeuvre par l’État, les collectivités et les associations pour favoriser l’insertion professionnelle de ceux qui reçoivent finalement le statut de réfugié. Mais le reste des demandeurs d’asile, qui constituent la part majoritaire, se retrouvent sans autorisation légale de séjour et de travailler. Ni la régularisation ni l’éloignement, tous deux très limités, n’apportent une solution. Il est d’autant plus nécessaire qu’une réflexion nouvelle, une modernisation et une amélioration de l’efficacité des procédures interviennent dans un domaine dont le coût budgétaire (6,5 milliards d’euros en 2019) a crû de 50 % depuis 2012.
By Alain RÉGNIER
Prefect and interministerial delegate in charge of the reception and integration of refugees
Following, a meticulous examination and acceptance of their applications for asylum in France, refugees obtain ‟international protection” for ten years. They then fall under common law, and employment becomes a two-pronged issue: earn a livelihood and achieve social integration. The government has committed itself to an ambitious policy for integrating refugees in the labor force. It no longer piles successive measures on top of each other but is seeking to switch to a program based on immigrants’ itineraries. The various parties (state, associations, local authorities, firms, etc.) attending to refugees try to interconnect their programs so that each refugee constructs his/her own itinerary for integration, an itinerary grounded on employment but also encompassing housing, physical and mental health, proficiency in French, the acquirement of cultural codes or even an introduction to the host society. The actions of the interministerial delegate in charge of receiving and integrating refugees are part of this global approach.
By Stella DUPONT
MP from Maine-et-Loire
Integration, a topic often discussed, has various, interdependent aspects. The economic integration of asylum-seekers and refugees refers to two quite different administrative realities with variable involvement by state authorities. While public policies for helping refugees enter the labor market receive substantial funding, the integration of asylum-seekers has not been declared a priority. The access of these persons to the labor market should be facilitated at a time when it is hard to recruit personnel in fast growing areas in France. Conditions should be loosened so as to foster the economic integration of asylum-seekers and their broader integration in French society.
By Vincent CHAUVET
Mayor of Autun, member of the French delegation of the European Committee of Regions (CoR)
Autun, the seat of the subprefecture in Saône-et-Loire department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, has 14,000 inhabitants. Located in the southern part of the Morvan Massif with its regional natural park, Autun figures among the small cities lying in the country’s ‟empty diagonal”. Its history reaches back two thousand years, as many monuments attest. Autun lies at the center of a rural, industrial district with, since the 1980s, a constantly declining population. The migratory balance does not make up for the natural demographic decrease, since the number of deaths due to the ageing of the population is far higher than the number of births and of newcomers settling in the town. Autun is benefitting from a new interest in small cities, and its thriving economy (tourism, industry, services) is opening new prospects. In line with its tradition throughout the 20th century of openness toward foreigners, the municipality volunteered in 2018 to take part in a national program for settling refugee families, whose socioeconomic integration will take time.
By Christian VANNOBEL
Mayor of Sissonne and representative on the regional council of Hauts-de-France region
Elected mayor of Sissonne in 2014 after having practiced general medicine for 37 years in this rural village, I was presented, in January 2018, with a proposal from an association for taking part in a humanitarian action for the temporary reception of refugees in the village. My personal convictions have always been that international tragedies should move us to do more than watch reports on television or read them in newspapers. So, this proposal was a chance for me to become an actor and not just an onlooker. The success of any initiative depends on personal convictions, their tenacity and transmission. After being pleasantly surprised to discover that my running mates easily accepted my convictions, we had to work with inhabitants, provide information, reassure and convince. This was gradually achieved thanks to ‟respect”: respect for fellow citizens and for refugees from their reception till their departure. For the presence of these refugees would be accepted as something ordinary, it was necessary to listen, pay attention, remain patient and, too, be on the lookout for signs of deviancy.
By Sonia RULLIÈRE
Direction de l’Insertion et de l’Emploi of Grenoble-Alpes Métropole
Refugees integration represents a major challenge for Grenoble-Alpes Métropole, with around four hundred new refugees every year and two thousand refugees already settled on our territory. Grenoble Métropole has formalized its commitment with the French State by signing a local welcoming and integration contract with a diversity of actions. The RISING program is supported by Grenoble Alpes Métropole and brings together a very large consortium of traditional partners supporting refugee population and partners in the employment and vocational training area. The programme takes a relationship-based approach to support unemployed refugees and migrants in entering employment or education.
By Jean-Christophe DUMONT
Head of the International Migration Division, Directorate for Employment, Labor and Social Affairs, OECD
Immigration, an important demographic factor, has had consequences on the labor market in countries belonging to the OECD. Along with the question of whether immigration will be a source of shared growth or of social tensions come questions about the conditions for socially integrating immigrants and bringing them into the labor market. Without widespread mobilization, not only will host communities be unable to fully profit from newcomers’ qualifications, but also a negative public debate about migrations, usually based on presuppositions and stimulated by fear, will persist and paralyze the actions of authorities in areas where they are needed the most.
By Hippolyte d’ALBIS
École d’économie de Paris, CNRS
and Ekrame BOUBTANE
CERDI-CNRS, Clermont Auvergne University
Economic immigration from countries not belonging to the European Economic Area represented, on the average, a little more than 13,200 people per year between 2000 and 2018. This yearly figure, sensitive to political changes, has constantly risen since 2012. Economic immigrants are concentrated in Paris and a few neighboring departments, and most of them are male. Two major trends can be observed since 2018. First of all, the immigration of the highly skilled has steadily increased and accounted for more than 6,500 people in 2018. Secondly, a large proportion of economic immigration stems from a policy for legalizing the status of immigrants (including persons who were refused asylum) who had jobs but did not have working permits.
By Francis LÉVY
Fédération française des Geiq
Firms that are trying to jointly solve their labor needs have set up and run GEIQs (Groupements d’Employeurs pour l’Insertion et la Qualification). They have made a joint wager on developing the qualifications of persons outside the labor market that are necessary for them to find work. Through training, monitoring and the improvement of skills, these associations are preparing people to find permanent positions in member companies. And this works! In the past twenty years, more than 100,000 people have passed through GEIQs. In 2019, the 175 GEIQs with their 7,200 member companies reached out to more than 15,000 people and had a success rate for training of more than 92%. Nearly 70% of trainees found a job, many of them immigrants who found stable employment and thus a form of integration.
By Marilyne POULAIN
CGT
The current health crisis has shed light on the vulnerability of the wage-earners who sustain our economy. Many of them are undocumented foreigners whose presence is ignored or not recognized. For labor unions, legalizing their status is a constitutional and social issue, and not just a humanitarian aspiration. It is a condition for guaranteeing the equal treatment of firms, improving working conditions and fighting against ‟social dumping”. What if, given the social situation of these invisible workers, the state were to side with collective intelligence and political courage! What if, given the current retreat into ‟identities”, we were to simply declare the unity of wage-earners and social cohesion? This is what, despite our differences of status and origins, joins us in the world of work, namely: our common interests.
By Frédéric SÈVE
National secretary of the CFDT
The health crisis has exposed the front-line position of several occupations in which workers of immigrant origin are overrepresented. This has not sufficed to reopen discussions about the relation between immigration and work. Terrified by the hysteria and phantasms lurking around this question, successive governments have turned out to be incapable of imagining how labor immigration could play a part in the economy’s normal operation, or how workers of immigrant origin could be integrated in the world of work. By increasing the obstacles to receiving and integrating immigrants in France, conducting fake debates about economic immigration, and refusing to improve the conditions for delivering work permits to undocumented workers, the government deprives itself of the means for achieving social cohesion, which is much needed in the current period.
By Olivier BORIUS
Director of integration, Forum Réfugiés- Cosi
Accelair and PRIR ‒ programs for integrating persons with the status of refugee ‒ are being conducted by Forum Réfugiés-Cosi in ten departments in France. Based on a list of demanding, ambitious requirements, they concentrate on three dimensions of integration in a global approach to the individual: socioeconomic, residential and linguistic. The objective is successful, durable integration.
By Cécile PIERRAT SCHIEVER
President and cofounder of Kodiko
At its origin, Kodiko wanted to do as much as possible to create social bonds between refugees and people in the French labor force so as to counter phantasms and fears with the concrete stories of refugees and thus facilitate integration. Since 2016, the association has followed up on the economic integration of nearly 650 refugees through a program that brings them in contact with wage-earners in firms. This is a ‟winner-winner” contribution to a more inclusive society.
By Christine HUYNH
Project head, Simplon.co
With its Migration Programme, Simplon.co is committed to helping promote Labour market integration for refugees and non-Europeans for who unemployment levels are two to three times higher than for French nationals. To combat this, Simplon.co created the Welcode project, which offers a training towards highly skilled jobs in a promising job sector. The Refugeeks project aims to tackle exclusion of refugees through the digital divide, by giving training in fundamental IT skills, thus aiming to autonomise trainees in their job integration. The success of these training programmes lies in the Simplon.co method, mixing free, individually tailored, full-time certifying training, active pedagogy, professional French lessons.
By Jean-Marie GLOWACKI
Head of the Hope & Sésame programs, AKTO
AKTO, which is active in labor-intensive skills and qualifications, has, for several years now, conducted programs on jobs for refugees. The objective has been twofold: foster the autonomy of refugees and their inclusion in society.
By David ROBERT
Director, SINGA France
How to calmly think about ‟inclusion” on the scale of a country? How to be better off with diversity instead of putting up with it? Beyond moral imperatives and good intentions, a horizontal, intercultural approach is necessary to develop concrete approaches to integrating immigrants in the labor force. Thoughts about the vocabulary related to asylum and integration bring to light the mental barriers to effective strategies. The recent literature and SINGA’s experiments since 2012 confirm that the theory of social capital (for learning how to create a maximum of networks of friendships and interests around newcomers) is both a pertinent analytical grid and operational tool for inclusion, especially in the world of work. Even though actions for targeting unemployed immigrants are apparently not a policy priority, the labor market must be made more inclusive. Accompanying immigrants to set up their own businesses, although it is not claimed to be a macroeconomic solution, does help alter perceptions about immigration. A first step is to see immigration as a potential source of innovation…
By Thomas AUVIN and Delphine KERUZEC
Transfer, Bordeaux
EDNA (Emploi Durable pour les Nouveaux Arrivants) is an experiment cofinanced by the French Ministry of the Interior and FAMI (Fonds Asile Migration Intégration). Launched in September 2019, this two-year program of ‟permanent jobs for newcomers” is innovative owing to its capacity for facilitating the hiring of new immigrants and providing new ways to accompany them toward the world of work. It is based on a method of interventions on supply and demand (IOD) developed by Transfer, an NGO, and implemented by the partners of the Transfer-IOD network. This method of active mediation targets both job-seekers and employers by taking account of their needs and helping to adjust the interests of both parties to the labor contract. EDNA improves the individual’s chances for inclusion while foreseeing the risks of stigmatization related to integration.
By Sylvie CHEVRIER
Gustave Eiffel University
and Théo SCUBLA
Cofounder, each One
An electrician who drives a taxi, a pharmacist who babysits, a young person who dreams of journalism but is offered work as a laborer… Refugees are very often led to reduce their expectations about employment. How to avoid this predicament and waste of talent for both the concerned and the host society? The conviction that this situation can be avoided motivates the young organization each One, which seeks to provide training to refugees on par with their expectations, help them look for a job, and then follow up on them and the firms that recruit them. How to do this? What are the challenges?
By Thierry LE ROY
President, France Terre d’Asile
What careers for young foreigners who have just arrived in France? This question arises for a simple reason: young foreigners, now numerous among new immigrants, are caught in a dilemma: the legal protection and social services provided till the age of 18, and then, once they attain legal majority, the applicable regulations for controlling immigration. Unaccompanied minors have doubled in number between 2016 and 2019 in France, an inflow that has spurred resistance. Owing to their age, these minors benefit from programs for fostering their ‟autonomy” ‒ for acquiring proficiency in the language, codes and values of French society and learning a trade. However they might be in a precarious situation (without the benefits of a legal status or accommodations) while waiting for a court decision on their age and eligibility. Once they have reached adulthood, they will then strive for a ‟youth contract for majors”, which is well adapted to their situation; but fewer than a third will obtain it. The same difficulty holds for obtaining a residence permit, which is subject to conditions that, related to their age upon arrival and the qualifications acquired since then, are hard to meet.
By Anne LE CABELLEC, Félix LAVAUX, Brigitte BAUDRILLER and Quentin JOSNIN
Fondation Apprentis d’Auteuil
Thousands of unaccompanied minors have entered France, isolated young people without a family who have come looking for a brighter future. Those recognized as being under age are taken into custody by departmental childhood protection services, which then entrust their wards to associations, like the Apprentis d’Auteuil. Since its creation in 1866, this foundation has accumulated experience and know-how, and honed its ability to follow up on young, in particular vulnerable, people. It has thus become a major player in this field in France. Before even thinking about economic integration, a series of actions have to be undertaken with the minors who volunteer but who, though motivated, have been traumatized by the conditions leading to their arrival in the country. Educational and social activities are necessary to help them acquire the codes of French society. This challenge, as told by Nicolas Truelle, the managing director of Apprentis d’Auteuil, and by the head of a small firm who was once an unaccompanied minor…
By Simon KARLESKIND
Engineer from the Corps des Ponts, Lab’R
After passage of the act of law on ‟asylum, immigration and successful integration” in 2018, the author worked for the new Interministerial Delegation for the Reception and Integration of Refugees. His first assignment was to make plans for a laboratory, Lab’R, with a simple but ambitious objective: reinvent social bonds. An exciting first phase was to select partners for a mission that would be meaningful to everyone. An architecture then had to be built by taking account of this complex ecosystem’s specific characteristics. All this would have remained a theoretical construct had there been no determination to come to grips with concrete problems. Reinventing social bonds is especially difficult in the case of immigration, given a mixture of presuppositions and fixed ideas. Bonds are the prerequisite for hosting and integrating immigrants.
By Louise VAN WINKLE
Embassy of Canada in France
To foster the economic integration of immigrants, Canada has adjusted its programs of selection by economic category and invested in services for the socioeconomic integration of all new arrivals. The country foresees hosting 410,000 permanent immigrants in 2021 under several programs, all of which have the objective of working for the country’s economic development and prosperity while reunifying families and upholding humanitarian commitments. Under a well-defined legislative framework, these programs are reviewed and adjusted by using data from longitudinal studies for measuring the success of new arrivals. The positive opinion expressed by Canadians even increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is both a condition and result of the successful integration of immigrants.
By David HARARI
Co-président du Haut Conseil France-Israël de la science et de la technologie
Programs of economic integration are intended to lead persons with socioeconomic difficulties toward permanent jobs. The goal is to prepare for the labor market or for a return to public employment persons who have dropped out of the labor market for a long time owing to their lack of qualifications, the need for reskilling following a long period of joblessness, or their physical handicaps. This article focuses on the economic integration of various groups in Israel that lack qualifications.
By Maëlle DUBOIS, Dr Christiane FRITSCHE, Doritt KOMITOWSKI and Dr Christian PFEFFER-HOFFMANN
Minor
Given the increased number of refugees coming to Germany in the mid 2010s, the topic of integrating them in the labor market has taken on importance. The legal framework for training and jobs has been successively enlarged, in particular for asylum-seekers and persons whose applications for asylum have been refused. These support programs have been designed, tested and adapted. In parallel, decisive progress has been made in data collection and analysis. For instance, the data on the labor force participation of refugees collected by the Federal Employment Agency have, since 2016, become more accurate. Governmental and nongovernmental services are paying closer attention to the diversity of refugees, in particular their age and educational backgrounds. This is essential for successful integration in the labor market. A glimpse of the general conditions for receiving refugees in Germany, the challenges to be taken up, and the measures adopted…
By Andreas DIEDRICH
Dept. of Business Administration & Gothenburg Research Institute, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Integration is described by many societal stakeholders and by media as one of the major contemporary challenges facing society in Sweden. This article reviews some important labour market integration measures for immigrants in Sweden and outlines some of the insights from recent studies of how the measures are organized in practice. The article illustrates that while LMI support for immigrants is heavily subsidized by the state and administered through the Swedish Public Employment Service, much of the actual support efforts are provided by other public, private and social/nonprofit organizations who collaborate in projects or as part of local agreements. This creates a complexity in practice that is not necessarily conducive to a more sustainable integration of immigrants into the labour market.
By Olivier ITEANU
Attorney, Appellate Court of Paris & lecturer at the Paris I & XI universities on digitial law and data
For 50 years, copyright and patent law have been fighting to monopolise a good, a source of great wealth: digital creations, to which software in particular belongs. And for a long time, copyright has prevailed. However, digital creations are works often requiring many engineers and technicians, but also heavy investments, far from the image of the author alone in front of his typewriter. And in fact, the inclusion of digital creations in the french literary and artistic property law has forced the legislator, and consequently the judge, to make many contortions and evasions. Meanwhile, the recent reforms of patent law give to it more flexibility and a new attractiveness. A look back at a legal epic for which we are still waiting for the outcome.
