French President Macron, Who Once Extolled Immigration, Changes His Mind

French President Emmanuel Macron last year castigated those who demanded that immigration be reduced — everyone understood that “Muslim immigration” was meant — saying that “immigration is part of our DNA.”

No one pressed him on this astonishing claim, but critics might have noted that the only immigrants to France before the recent mass migration of North African Muslims had in the last century been fellow Christians from Spain (Republican refugees who arrived after the Spanish civil war), from Italy (laborers who provided a steady stream of workers to farms and factories), and the more than one million French pieds noirs who fled Algeria during the Algerian war and, in its greatest numbers, when the country came under Arab rule in 1962. All of these migrants came to France to work, not to batten on extensive benefits from the state, as Muslim economic migrants have been doing. And none of them, as Christians, carried with them in their mental baggage the hatred of the Infidel French that Muslims learn so early from the Qur’an, which teaches them that they are, as Muslims, the “best of peoples,” while non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings.”

But now, scarcely a year later, Macron has had a change of heart. He saw the violent Muslim riots all over France that erupted in response to the killing of 17-year-old Nahel Marzouk at a traffic stop, riots that went on for nearly two weeks in July. The killing was likely an accident; the policeman who has been charged, Florian M., maintains that he was leaning into the driver’s window, his gun pointed downward, but when Nahel Marzouk suddenly pressed hard on the accelerator, and took off, his arm was jolted and instead of firing at the driver’s leg, he shot him in the chest. Without waiting for any details, French officials, from President Macron on down, behaved like hanging judges in this whole affair. Long before a trial will be held, Macron described the policeman’s act as “inexplicable” and “unforgivable.” Similar judgements were offered by Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne and Minister of the Interior Gerard Darmanin. They ought to have shut up, and waited for the evidence to come out at trial, instead of trying to placate angry Muslims. Throwing Florian M. to the wolves — his family members now must live under armed guard — was despicable.

Macron may.now have reconsidered his earlier rush to judgment, after having received Florian M.’s version of events. He was certainly shaken by the riots, and by the ingratitude of those who, Macron knows as well as anybody, have had many billions of euros spent on them every year, far more than is spent on France’s rural population. He has been mugged by the reality of Muslim violence and Muslim crime. And he is also aware of the shift in French opinion, which has become increasingly despairing about Muslim immigration. In the latest opinion poll, 74% of the French said they wanted to reduce immigration, by which they meant Muslim immigration. They are tired of the enormous expenditures on violent ingrates, tired of the skyrocketing crime, tired of the No-Go areas in major cities, tired of the unpleasantness that results from daily encounters with a growing segment of the population that has no desire to integrate into the larger society.

More on Macron’s change of heart can be found here: “Macron pledges to reduce immigration after claiming just last year that migration is ‘a part of France’s DNA,’” by John Cody, Remix News, August 25, 2023:

France must reduce immigration, beginning with legal entrants, President Emmanuel Macron said in a wide-ranging interview with weekly political magazine Le Point. Macron’s remark comes after he last year said that migration “is part of France’s DNA” and oversaw a record increase in immigrants in 2022.

During the Le Point interview, the French president indicated that his government will submit a new immigration bill to the French Parliament in the autumn, the adoption of which has been postponed several times over the past year.

“Are we flooded with immigration? No. You cannot say that. But the current situation is not sustainable, and we need to reduce immigration significantly, starting with illegal immigration. We have a duty to deliver,” the French president said in the interview.

This is a complete reversal by Macron from his bold statement of just a year ago.

“To do this, we need to better protect our external European borders, because let’s not forget that France is not a country of entry for foreigners arriving in Europe, but rather a country of secondary immigration for foreigners who have entered the European Union from another country,” he added.

What he is saying, in veiled fashion, is this: those Muslim economic migrants enter Europe through Greece, Spain, and Italy, and make their way to France because of the famously generous French welfare state. Those economic migrants know that in France they will receive free or greatly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, family allowances, unemployment benefits (even without a history of work in France), and more. So France needs to protect its borders with other European countries, especially Italy and Spain, from which migrants will try to enter the Hexagon, more than it needs to protect its coastline.

As Remix News reported earlier in the year, Macron has overseen a record increase in immigration during his tenure.

“A record year for the flood of immigrants into France: 320,330 residence permits were issued in 2022, the equivalent of the population of the city of Nantes. And that’s without taking illegal immigration into account. It is urgent to regain control of our borders!” Marine Le Pen tweeted earlier in 2023.

And if we add to that number of residence permits, a likely equal number of illegal migrants, France may be taking in at least two-thirds of a million migrants each year, a number that, as Macron recognizes, is unsustainable for a country with a population of only 70 million. And how long can the welfare state continue to offer such generous.benefits to the indigenous French, when so much of the state’s funds are supporting the welfare grifters from North Africa who continue to pile in?

On Jan. 26 of this year, the center-right daily Le Figaro commented on the figures published by the interior ministry with the title “Increasingly strong migratory pressure puts France against the wall.” It also ran its daily editorial on the government’s “guilty negligence” concerning immigration.

Macron may be relying on the public’s short memory when it comes to messaging on immigration, as his administration is well aware that mass immigration is rejected by the vast majority of the French populace.

Three-quarters — 74% — of the French believe there are too many migrants in France; this number keeps rising, year after year. Macron, hoping the public will overlook his last year’s remark, is no longer going to claim that immigration, that is, Muslim migrants, benefits the country. The French know better. And now, it appears, so does he.