NICE, France – As the U.S. Congress struggles to reconcile different immigration bills, this bustling coastal city is adapting to the immigration debates roiling the capitals of major industrial nations in France’s typical comme ci, comme ca manner.
Like Marseilles, its neighbor to the west, Nice has long been an international gateway. People of every race and culture from France’s former colonial empire mingle in the cafes and wine bars. Lovers from different ethnic groups laze on park benches and stroll the boulevards, hand in hand.
While neighborhoods in Paris erupted for several nights last week, Nice remained calm, a turnaround from last November when youths in Nice and other cities across France exploded over chronic joblessness and discrimination against people of Arab and African descent.
Despite government pledges of improvement, conditions have barely changed. The jobless rate in France is 9.3 percent, higher than the European Union average. Youth unemployment in France is 22.1 percent.
Last month, the lower house of parliament passed a stringent immigration bill by a wide margin. The bill, which is slated for discussion in the French Senate this week, would allow unskilled workers into the country only when labor shortages exist in certain sectors of the economy, and it would end the automatic right to long-term residency after living in the country for 10 years.
Opponents said the bill would heighten racism and discrimination against immigrants. Following the measure’s passage, Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, faced protests when he visited the African nations of Mali and Benin.
France’s search for a balance on immigration comes against the backdrop of the rapidly evolving labor and industrial scene across Europe and elsewhere. Not a day goes by when there is not some news about the impact of globalization and its game of musical chairs involving capital, markets, labor, services and the corporate chase for talent and competitive advantage.
“Car plants across Western Europe are waiting for the ax to fall,” Michael Shields wrote in a June 1 Reuters dispatch. “From Britain to Spain, workers are left wondering if their plants will survive as production shifts steadily to low-cost Eastern Europe.”
Labor costs in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are less than one third what they are in Western Europe, Reuters reported.
Economists point out that while a hallmark of modern economic agreement has been the European Union’s establishment of the right to work anywhere in European Union states, that benefit has not been easy to manage. The Austrian government has prolonged its ban on hiring workers from nearby Eastern European states, even though Austrian business “has benefited immensely” from Eastern European workers, according to the May 30 International Herald Tribune.
Joblessness stands at a relatively low 5.2 percent in Austria, but politicians there fear a social backlash if they cracked the door to wider immigration. “Our answer to this problem is political, not only economic,” Austrian economy minister Martin Bartenstein told the Herald.
Meanwhile, as Austria is being cautious, France’s northern neighbor, Belgium, has begun easing its limit on workers from the newest EU countries in Eastern Europe, as a way to “keep a lid on wages,” according to the June 2 Bloomberg News. Belgium decided to follow Britain, Ireland and Sweden in permitting more immigrant job seekers.
Since the EU expanded to 25 nations in May 2004, more than 300,000 Eastern Europeans have taken jobs in Britain.
“The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said last month that the Bank of England might be able to avoid raising interest rates as economic growth accelerates, because immigrant labor could hold down wages and inflation,” Bloomberg News reported.
The Third Person 