In France, Support For Mass Immigration Has Plummeted

The French have been mugged by reality — the reality of mass immigration by Muslims, chiefly from North Africa, who are economic migrants posing as asylum seekers. These immigrants come not to work, but to batten on the many benefits that the generous French state provides – free or greatly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, unemployment benefits even for those without a work history in France, and more. These maghrebins – the Muslims from North Africa, especially from Algeria and Morocco — are responsible for a steep rise in street robberies, home burglaries, and violence of every kind, including rape and murder; more than half of the crimes committed in Paris, President Macron has admitted, are now committed by the “foreign born,” as he prefers to call the migrants, carefully not specifying their Muslim countries of origin. Muslims make up 8-10% of the population in France, but they constitute 70% of the prisoners. Among the recent rioters, Muslim Arabs were represented far beyond their percentage of the population.

The French government spends billions of euros every year to provide millions of Muslim immigrants with government support of every kind. Those billions spent on these migrants – who are in no hurry to find gainful employment – is money that the French government does not have available to spend on its retirees, which is the main reason, though no politician has pointed it out, why President Macron felt compelled to lower the retirement age from 64 to 62. The result of all this expense, mayhem, crime, and general insecurity has led to a precipitous drop in support for immigration, including among those on the left. This was true even before the recent riots, as is clear from this story from April: “Support for mass immigration among French left has plummeted in last 5 years,” by Thomas Brooke, Remix News, April 11, 2023:

A recent national study revealed that almost 1 in 2 people who affiliate with French left-leaning parties think there are now too many immigrants in the country.

The number of those on the left of French politics who believe the level of immigration into the country is too high has almost doubled in the last four years, according to a new study.

An in-depth survey, conducted by French research and consulting group, BVA France, observed a hardening on the topic of immigration across the French public when compared with the same study conducted in 2018.

Nearly seven out of 10 French people (69 percent) believe “there are too many immigrants in France today,” a view that has seen an increase in support of six points compared to the 2018 study. However, when analyzing the attitude of those who affiliate with left-leaning political parties, this statement is supported by 48 percent, up 21 points in just five years.

Adélaïde Zulfikarpasic, general manager of BVA France, discussed the results with Fondation Jean-Jaurès, a French think tank associated with the Socialist Party, in a bid to ascertain why politically left-leaning French nationals have become disillusioned with the country’s liberal migration policy, and to analyze the extent to which the topic of immigration has now become an issue of concern across the French political divide.

The notion that France now welcomes too many immigrants is naturally one that receives majority support from voters for the National Rally (95 percent) and Reconquête! (93 percent). However, even within Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing populist La France Insoumise party, a majority of supporters (51 percent) agree with the statement, and one in two (50 percent) supporters of Europe Écologie Les Verts (“The Greens”) agree with the statement. This is an increase of 20 percent and 22 percent, respectively, in support of the statement among those who affiliate themselves with the two left-wing parties when compared to the 2018 study.

More and more French are heeding the warnings about “the Great Replacement,” that refers to the demograpic change when the indigenous Europeans are replaced by non-European Muslim migrants, almost all of them Muslims. It is this Great Replacement that, according to the celebrated writer Michel Houllebecq, is already underway. Both the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi and the Algerian leader Houari Boumedienne long ago predicted that “in the wombs of our women,” Muslims would take over Europe. While millions of Muslim migrants continue to flow into Europe every year, even more worrisome are the increasing numbers of Muslim babies now being born in Europe. The fertility rate for Muslim women in France is three times higher than that for the indigenous French, who are not reproducing themselves. Assuming no changes in the immigration policy, and no changes in the fertility rates of the French and of the Muslim migrants in France, the French population will inexorably be islamized through a kind of demographic jihad. Eric Zemmour recently pointed out that many Muslims from North Africa seem to think that France, as a kind of reparations for colonialism, is obliged to take in their demographic surplus. Other Muslims describe the many benefits they receive from the French government as a justified exaction of the JIzyah from the Infidels, even in the absence of a Muslim state.

Although a minority (43 percent) still agree that France has too much immigration, among supporters of the Socialist Party, this figure has also increased by 18 percentage points in five years.

In other words, five years ago, only 25% of far-left people in France, supporters of the Socialist Party, agreed that there were too many immigrants in France, but that figure has now nearly doubled, to 43%. That is still a minority of those voters, but if the trend of the last five years continues, by 2026, a majority of Socialist Party supporters, too, will have concluded that France has too many (Muslim) immigrants. And the obvious solution to that to call a complete halt to Muslim immigration into France.

On a second statement regarding the extent to which French people believe immigrants are “well integrated in France,” just 39 percent of respondents agreed, compared to 60 percent who do not agree.

Again, typically a majority of National Rally, Les Républicains, and Reconquête! supporters strongly disagreed with the statement, but those among the French left did as well. La France Insoumise was the only party that had a majority of supporters agreeing with the statement, with 53 percent, while just 43 percent of the Greens and 42 percent of Socialist Party supporters believe immigrants have integrated well into French society.

Not even a majority of the Greens (the Environmental Party) and of the Socialists agree that immigrants are “well integrated in France.” Only by a the slimmest of majorities – 53% — do the members of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left party, La France insoumise, agree that migrants are “well-integrated.” And perhaps they are thinking not of the Muslim migrants, but of all those other immigrants – Poles, Romanians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindus – who have also come as migrants to France but, unlike the Muslim migrants, promptly set to work. And unlike Muslims, they are ideologically capable of integrating into French society. Muslims hold back from attempts at integrating into societies run by Infidels, who are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6), while Muslims are “the best of peoples” (Qur’an 3:110). It would make no sense, given those Qur’anic descriptions, for Muslims to want to integrate into such a society. They will pocket all the benefits offered by the French state, but remain firmly aloof from the Infidels who pay for them.

Upon analysis of the wider results of the study, Adélaïde Zulfikarpasic noted that the French population can be divided into three main categories. “The open (are) individuals who do not agree with the idea that there are too many immigrants in France today. They represent 31 percent of the population compared to 35 percent in 2018.”

Fewer than one-third of the French disagree with the statement that “there are too many immigrants in France today.” And since among those polled there were a considerable number of Muslims living in France, all of whom would have disagreed with the statement that there are too many immigrants in France, one can conclude that among the non-Muslim French, far fewer than 31% would disagree with that statement that there are too many immigrants in France today. Those indigenous French who still refuse to admit that there are too many immigrants in France may actually be as low as 25% of the French population, and their numbers continue to plummet.

Second is “the reserved,” which is comprised of individuals “who feel that there are too many immigrants in France today but who, at the same time, think that France should welcome refugees who seek asylum. These represent 35 percent of the population,” Zulfikarpasic said.

I think we can read between the lines of this response. The French are capable of distinguishing the Muslim economic migrants, who they think “are already too many,” from the non-Muslim migrants who are genuine asylum seekers, fleeing war or despotism – such as Ukrainians, or Cubans, or Venezuelans.

And lastly, “the refractors,” who believe that there are too many immigrants in France today and who do not agree with the idea that France should welcome refugees who seek asylum. Zulfikarpasic noted that this category has strengthened in the past few years and now constitute 69% of the French population.

Nearly 70% of the total population of France don’t want to accept any more immigrants, even if they are genuine asylum seekers. Of the 30% who would be willing, one-third are Muslim migrants themselves. Their experience with Muslim immigrants has been so unpleasant in every way, that 70% of the French no longer want to accept any more immigrants, period, and that includes asylum seekers. Perhaps they have lost faith in their own government’s ability to distinguish the genuine asylum seekers from the Muslim economic migrants who have been draining the French treasury

“We therefore measure it quite clearly: The opinions of the French on the subject of immigration have hardened. However, this development is not the prerogative of the right. And now, nearly one in two supporters of the left, as we have seen, believe that there are too many immigrants in France,” Zulfikarpasic told Fondation Jean-Jaurès. “And barely one in two consider that, in general, immigrants are well integrated in our country.”

The study results are published at a time when the French government is proposing a new immigration bill — one that has been pushed back on the government agenda after being deemed too politically explosive at a time when French society is already highly charged over President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension reforms.

Moreover, 83 percent of French people consider it difficult to talk about immigration today,” Zulfikarpasic concluded. “The upcoming review of the immigration bill will be an opportunity to put it at the center of the table.”

The conclusion is clear. Whatever questions about immigration that were posed, the answers show that the French public’s support for immigration has plummeted among all political parties. The French have seen how the Muslim economic migrants have behaved, living on the government dole, and making sure they can take advantage of every benefit that is offered – free or subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, unemployment benefits even without a work history — and more. They have seen, and suffered from, the high rates of Muslim criminality — street muggings and holdups, smash-and-grab robberies from shops, house burglaries, rapes, and murders. This all takes its toll, and changes the minds of those unwary French who just a decade or two ago were naively welcoming Muslims into their midst.

Will the political leaders in France do as the French clearly want them to do, and call a halt to these Muslim economic migrants, or will they, with the exceptions of Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, continue their whistling in the dark, and avoid adopting the only immigration policies that make sense if France is to remain France?

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