Ostrava, Czech Republic : Impact of migration [Part 1] - Contribution of the French Team

Cross perspectives on exile
Social Impacts of migration
Meeting in Ostrava 08/04/2010–14/04/2010

GYMNÁZIUM HLADNOV, SLEZSKÁ OSTRAVA, CZECH REPUBLIC

Teachers: Martina Baseggio, Petra Janasová, Jana Kondziolková
Students: Nina Bajuszová, Veronika Cholevová, Natálie Konečná, Patrik Šimíček, Tomáš Zemánek, Aneta Plačková, Tereza Chorovská, Vojtěch Lampart, Eavid Horváth, JanOndra, Denis Kubajura, Lenka Žárská, Eenisa Mikolajková, Lucie Křesťanová, Michal Ondruš,AnnaEoležalová Lucie Görlichová, Zuzana Lusková, Katka Koutníková, Tereza Měsícová, Barbora Vilišová, Ivana Kadlčíková
Participating schools:

LYCFE ARISTIDE BERGÈS, SEYSSINET-PARISET, FRANCE

Teachers: Martine Dupuis, Alain Croquelois
Students: students of 1ère ES1, Morgan Dauger, Lyriel Benameur, Arthur Meyer, Alexis Vilien, Léo Magoga, Andrea Foti, Héléne Breches, Aïcha Eakhoine, Sophie Salamon

LICEO SCIENTIFICO STATALE “GALILEO GALILEI”, POTENZA, ITALY

Teachers: Elisabetta Grimaldi, Maria Grazia Blumetti;
students: Bevilacqua Michele, Molinari Monica, Orlando Chiara, Aicale Rocco, Matera Olga, Pasqui Andrea, Sileo Angelica, Telesca Sergio.

COLEGIUL NAŢIONAL “CONSTANTIN CARABELLA”, TÂRGOVIŞTE, ROMANIA

Teachers: Gabriela Tache, Claudia Rusu, Aurelian-Daniel Tache;
students : Iordanescu Irini, Ioana Raisa, Roxana Dobre, Cristescu Daniel, Vlad Butucea, Teodor Uta, Balan Andrei, Hossu Oana Maria

DUNDAR CILOGLU ANADOLU LISESI,MANISA,TURKEY

Teachers: Pelin Aydın, Sezgi Poyraz,Selami Arı, Hilmi Ӧnal ;
students: Nurten Bayraktar, Fbru Detin, Berk Uçar, Pınar Karşıyaka, Fatih Yazgün, Simay Güzel, Sedef Yıldırım, Armağan Yücel Şahin, Berk Güler

Contents
France
Czech Republic
Italy
Turkey
Romania
The economical impact of migration in Romania
The impal of labour migration on children
The story of the balloon
Psychological impact of migration

The project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

FRANCE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Social impact has to be here understood in the widest possible sense: it contains as well psychological dimension as demographic, without forgetting integration, discrimination, disparities... but, it is even also rather artificial, almost impossible to separate this social dimension of the others (political, cultural, economic....)
These impacts can be as well positive as negative for the country and the concerned persons.

There are no official figures because the migrants hide their identity, the authorities do not reveal the figures which also ensue from the hardening of the controls on the borders. However, we estimate at 12000 the number of deaths between 1988 and 2008 among whom 8180 drowned persons.

French contribution
words of exile

«L‟exil est une espèce de longue insomnie » Victor Hugo ( écrivain français 1802-1885)
"Exile is a kind of long sleepness“
«Vous pouvez arracher l‟homme du pays, mais ne pouvez pas pays du coeur de l‟homme » John Dos Passos ( écrivain américain 1896-1970)
"You can tear away the man of the country, but cannot tear away the country from the heart of man.“
«Emigrés» en France, ils sont «Parisiens»au Mali, une double étiquette nécessairement péjorative qui fait d‟eux des étrangers en France et au Mali. En effet, il est étranger chez lui et ne sera jamais accepté par ses hôtes car « le bout de bois a beau durer dans l'eau, il ne peut se transformer en caïman» E‟après Fmigré, de SeidinaOumar Eicko( écrivain malien)
" Emigrated " in France, they are "Parisians" in Mali, a double inevitably pejorative label which makes of them foreigners in France and in Mali. Indeed, is foreign at him and will never be accepted by his hosts because " the piece of wood may last in the water, he cannot be transformed into caiman “.
«Je suis un homme de frontières : entre deux cultures, entre deux pays, entre plusieurs métiers, j'ai toujours aimé l'entre -deux, le dialogue entre des univers qui s'ignorent »Hakim Fl Karoui ( essayiste et banquier)
“I am a man of borders: between two cultures, between two countries, between several jobs, I always liked the intervening period, the dialogue between universes which ignore each other“
“I faut être constamment un immigré”Iannis Xenakis (musicien grec 1922-2001)
" It is necessary to be constantly an immigrant "

Demographic impact

In 2008, 3.1 million people aged from18 to 50 years, born in metropolitan France are children of immigrants.

Between 1872 and 1927, the foreigners supplied half of the population growth of France. In the next decades, 2/3 of the natural increase result from births in the families of foreign origin.
Today 20 % of the persons been born in France have at least a relative or a grand-parent who arrived as immigrant. In the beginning of the XXI thcentury, France would count twelve million inhabitants less if it had not benefited from the immigration during the XXthcentury. This report reveals at once(at the same time) the born deficit which knows France during the period " comment baby boom ", and highlights the important role and the demographic weight which represents the population stemming from the immigration in France.
Distribution of immigrants in France
60% of immigrants are groupedin 3 regionsof France. 60% in Ile de France, and others in Rhône Alpes and Provence Alpes Cotes d‟Azur This population is poorly represented in Western France

Population pyramid
Unlike other countries as Germany, Italy, France does not know demographic fall about the horizon 2015, neither for its total population nor for its working population. With a fertility of 2 children by woman, France is situated in the first row in Europe. Besides its migratory balance is relatively important: 50 000 a year between 1990 and 1999 and nowdays100 000.
The immigrants also contributed to this growth of the French population. The immigrant women have an indication of fertility superior to that of the women of origin (2.3 children by woman approximately). However, the more these women arrive young in France and the more their indication of fertility is close to that of the national.

From Inequalities…..To exclusion
Exclusion An example: Romanian Romas in France

This example is based mainly on the works of the Commission of human rights and association " Médecins du monde ".
For reminder, Roma are approximately two millions in Romania (10 % of the population) and are only some thousands in France, living mainly in Ile-de-France and in the region of Lyon. Since September, 2002, they are the object of increasing police pressures, repeated evictions from their places of housing environment and of dismissals forced in Romania regardless of their living conditions in this country.
The example of the discriminations undergone by the Roma in Romania illustrates the scale of the problem: discriminations in the hiring, in the school where the presence of the children Roma is little wished because of a double discrimination (on one hand, because they are Roma and disdained as such and on the other hand, because they benefit from measure of positive discrimination which the rest of the population finds inequitable), ban on access to certain public places, invectives on behalf of a part of the population which treats the Roma of " brunets " in allusion to the color of the skin.
Families of Roma come in France to avoid the poverty and the discriminations victims of which they are in their country. Traumatized by the exile, the Roma choose to group together to resist better, and, in the complete absence of welcome, accommodation or housing, settle down on grounds abandoned in the chinks of cities, in the carcasses of caravans (while they are sedentary in their country), in camps which they build, more rarely in squats. So appear shanty towns, dirty places of life, rightly denounced by all.

Today, in Mauves, near Nantes " here, they say, we are much happier than in Romania! We can be looked after and send our children to the school ".

Demonstration of Romas in Paris: " stop of the raids, stopof the evictions, the right for the work for all, disappearance of shanty towns.

Besides, these measures turn out perfectly ineffective. Exclusively repressive, they hinder not at all
the motivations of the Roma, which, even sent back in Romania, return, group together in another place, and try to rebuild projects, looking above all, as they say it themselves, a better futurefor their children.
For „Médecins du Monde“ there is urgency to act by the improvement of the conditions of welcome, the access to the fundamental rights that are the accommodation, the health, the schooling of the children, the access to minimal resources to assure the everyday life.
The second European summit on the inclusion of the Roma took place in Cordoba (Spain), on April 8th and 9th, 2010, on the occasion of the international day of the Roma.

It is at the time of his arrival that the immigrant discovers what that is concretely to be a "foreigner“ subjected towards the Other one, towards the one who has the standards for him.
" Dirty and bad payers (…) which their think only of degrading the premises are confided.
Some of them knifed animals in bathtubs and filled pipes. The expenses of these cultural feasts are all the same at our expense"
Le Creusot – about Polnish in 1934
„And my country, France, my homeland, my earth, is again invaded, with the blessing of our successive governments, by a foreign, in particular Moslem overpopulation, for which we make allegiance. Of this Islamic overflowing, we have to undergo in our défendantsbodies all the traditions. Why, such of the sheepsdedicated to illicit sacrifices, don‟t we react ?“
Brigitte Bardot ( french actrice), Le Figaro of April 26th, 1996

Racism and xenophobia
« Equality is never natural, it’s ever a struggle.»
François Mitterrand (1989) french presidentfrom1981 to 1995

Racism is the belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular „race“.Or, on the opposite side, racism can be described as the belief that a certain „race or races“ portray undesirable characteristics. In the case of institutionalacism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or receive preferential treatment.
Xenophobia is a dislike and/or fearof that which is unknownor different from oneself. It comes from the two Greek words meaning "stranger," and "foreigner" and meaning"fear." The term is typically used to describe a fear or dislike of foreigners or of people significantly different from oneself, usually in the context of visibly differentiated minorities.
The literature of the immigration, although we want to read it, is filled with descriptions of this kind which prove that the "stigmatization" of the foreigner, if it can take varied forms, is not a specificity of such or such nationality or ethnic group; that it is not a " Jewish problem " or a " Arabic problem " bound to "religious ", " cultural" peculiarities or "physical appearances".

The disparities being very numerous and cumulative, we hve to chose although it is not very satisfactory for us.

The immigrants and the foreigners are victims of two forms of disparities which accrue: the discriminations, which get those who distinguish themselves by their skin colour, their patronymic or their accent, and the social origin, whom makes in particular more difficult the school routes.

Housing

Family of Portuguese immigrants in a shanty town around Paris, in 1964

Historic: A long time, the situation in housing was not very different between the immigrants and the French workers.
The population increases and the housing shortage eventually makes scandal by the voice of the Abbé Pierre in winter, 1954. Of the plan running to URBAN DEVELOPMENT ZONES and in diverse special plans we cannot detail here the multiple measures by which the experimental state and subsidize two decades of construction sites and urbantransfers.
The movement HLM fetches for a long time to maintain an image of lodging-house keepers of quality for the people, the poorest being put in on hold.Intheory,theforeignersarenotexclude.
In practice, a border long-lasting going to separate the immigrants and the social housing.
The listed foreign population, of 1,7 millions in 1954 passes in 3,4 in 1975. The foreigners have choice betweenworkers'homesor falling points of the community networks, shanty towns, hotels or slumlords.
The period is marked by the extreme visibility of shanty towns.

From the film : „Le Gone du Chaâba“ de Christophe Ruggia.
Chaâba was a place near Lyon, where lived immigrants from Maghreb
The figures of accommodation HLM attributed to the foreigners increase from 1968. The rule for HLM was the one of the dispersal, in other words the quota, defined between 15 % and 20 %, (what supposed exchanges between cities and municipalities ), to avoid the problems of cohabitation with the French people.
The nationals of the former migrations, Spanish or Italians, know conditions of access easier to the normal accommodation. The discrimination against the North Africans is visible in all the stages.
The part of micro-shanty towns is unimportant, the part of shanties has strongly decreased (between 1962 and 1990, 85 % of the park of rooms and furnished would have disappeared, the accommodation in furnished flat is crossed from 21 % to 5 % of the foreigners between 1975 and 1990) and one majority of immigrant households (or of their children) live in housing having one minimum of comfort and much less overpopulated than in past.
Today, there are still problems, even if global situation is better :The immigrants less indeed accommodated: the households, the head of the family of which is an immigrant live on average in smaller housing than the household of non immigrated origin (75,1 m2, against 90,6 m2) and are a little more living in it: on average 2,9 persons for the first ones, against 2,3 for the second. They are also much more frequently in situation of overpopulation: 28,4 % of them are concerned, against 5 % of the immigrated households.

In city center as in suburbs, the city so tends to be marked by sound history of immigration more apparently than in past. The social segregations are there stressed. It is not at all a peculiarity of the French cities, the same phenomena find in the other big countries of immigration.

EDUCATION

Often affected in less successful establishments (because welcoming children stemming from discriminated circles), the children of immigrant families are disadvantaged frequently from the beginning.

The weight of the social difficulties.

In the entrance to 6 (11 years old), the results(profits) obtained in the national evaluations by the pupils whose relatives are immigrants or foreigners, are situated about 10 points below the national average. And 7 years after their 6th, these children more often went out of the educational system than the other young people (12 % against 9 % according to the INSEE(NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STATISTICS AND ECONOMIC STUDIES))
In the high school diploma, whereas the average rate of success is 86 %, the proportion falls to 51.2 % for the foreign pupils. The distance is even bigger for the high school diploma of the general series (not technological). They are also under-represented in the universtitie ssectors.

But it is necessary to put in perspective

The children of immigrants are more often than the others stemming from discriminated circles: so, in the study, three quarters of them belong to a family.
Whose reference person is labor, used by services or inactivates, what is the case only for a third of the young people whose an immigrant none of the relatives is. If we indeed want to take into account these data, the reality is reversed in comparable social and family situations. So, in the case of a family of two children a skilled worker and the inactive mother of which the father is (both graduates of a CAP(VOCATIONAL TRAINING QUALIFICATION)), the pupils whose relatives are from the Maghreb are 26,6 % of chances to enter a general high school against 20,7 % for the children arisen from French relatives. This percentage climbs on 37,6 % for those who are native of South-East Asia. On the other hand, the chances are comparable between the pupils native of Black Africa and those of French relatives. And they collapse in 12,7 % for them.

The professional ambitions of the young people stemming from the immigration is characterized by the wish to win some money and refusal of the labor condition. They are more many to advance the imperative " to earn indeed its living " thanks to their future job: 73 % call upon this objective against 65 % of the young people of immigrated relatives. The refusal of the profession of their relatives goes to the same direction. When their father is a skilled worker, half of the sons of immigrants against only the third of the other young people declare “ to want absolutly not to make the same thing "+ This refusal expresses himself with so much strength at the girls of immigrants of whom the mother is labor or used by services. This will of social mobility establishes a powerful control lever for the ambitions of studies and professional which express these young people.
A study of the INSEE appeared in 2009 shows that the children of immigrant relatives succeed as well as the children stemming from families immigrated in equal social standing.

Employment and discrimination in the hiring

Unemployment rate: The unemployment rate of the immigrants can explain by three main factors: the disparities right, the discriminations and the social inequalities.

Speechless jobs: Between 6 and 7 million jobs in the public service, public enterprises are closed to the foreigners, especially those who are not European (30 % of the total employment).

A little more than 23 % of the men whose relatives are of foreign origin is unemployed against 10 % of the men arisen from French relatives.
They are also more touched by the precariousness and depend many more not stable jobs.
Thus the unemployment gets much more the foreigners than French. Between 30 and 39 years, more than 35 % of the foreigners native of Africa are unemployed, against 11 % for those who come from the inside of the EU.

The sector of employment also enters consideration. A part of the foreigners (maghrebins, African) were strongly got by the crisis of the French heavy industries, while the others (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese) were more often employed on sectors having less lost of jobs and where the family network playsmore to find an employment(use) BTP(BUILDING AND CIVIL ENGINEERING WORKS) for example)

Distribution of the working population by social category and origin, in %

46% of strangers are workersgainst5% for frenches.The French economy already has to face shortages of workforce in certain sectors and this phenomenon will go by increasing in the future.
For several years, certain companies or administrations meet difficulties of recruitment, in particular in sectors and jobs by the building and by the public works, by the mechanical engineering industry, by the hotel business restoration and in the hospital sector or hospitable para. The jobs about which it is a question are jobs averagely qualified (skilled workers, representatives, supervisors, male nurses, midwives, cooks, technicians, butchers, bakers, pork butchers). The tensions registered in these sectors will not be reduced in the short term. Besides, and there is there no coincidence, some of these sectors are privileged places of development of the clandestine work (building hotel business restoration).

The affair of the Polish plumbert

At the same time but in the longer term, that is on the horizon 2015, the number of vacant positions every year on the labor market should increase strongly, in particular because of the retirement of the generations been born after war, for two categories of jobs:
-In the service sector, for not qualified jobs (home helps, attendants, nursery assistants, cleaning operatives) BUT also for qualified jobs ( because of the „numerus clausus“ France misses doctors for example: In emergency departments, we already find doctors coming from Rumania or else where which are less paid)
-In the branch of industry and in that of the services, for jobs of frames, that is for very qualified jobs (computer specialists, sales executives and technical salesmen, frames and technicians of the BTP(BUILDING AND CIVIL ENGINEERING WORKS), staffs of studies and search, administrative frames and leaders of company, teaching)

Particular case of without papers

There would be in France between 200 000 and 400 000 illegal aliens (their number is imprecise because of their clandestine), among them many are paid „black" and cannot complain about theirpay, conditions work or an employer refusingto pay. Thesea re social situations "explosive" because this operation is a new form of modern slavery. The emigrants, refugees and more specifically the undocumented, occupypositions most difficult which makes their conditions worse than thoseof the working class. This is why we can see that the „black“ is one of the limits of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as it does not take into account then it would be 7 to 8% of GDP.

INCOMES

The immigrated households have a higher income of 46.6 % than the immigrates households. It explains by the types of busy jobs and the levels of qualification less higth. The immigrant women are more often, cleaning ladies with a very low working time.You should not forget the other factors as the discriminations.

Poverty

With standards of living situated frequently in the bottom of the distribution, the persons living in an immigrant household are more explained to the poverty. The rate of monetary poverty is defined as the proportion in a level of life lower than a certain threshold, called poverty line.
This threshold is calculated with regard to the median of it distribution of standards ofliving.In2009,the rate of poverty in 60% of the set of population is 13,4%; it corresponds to a standard of living lower than 908euro a month.

The rate of poverty of the persons living in an immigrant household is 36,1% . It is upper of about 25 points to that observed in the population of the immigrated households. This rate is the most raised in the households the reference person of which is native of Africa, in 42,7 %. When the reference person is a national of the continent European, the rate of poverty remains sharply upper to that of the whole population, to 24%.

Indicators of poverty according to the origin of reference person in 2007

Nevertheless....

Too "different", "not rather loyal" … The immigrants fit today less well than yesterday,as it is said to us. Although certain stemmingfrom the exile and migrations are confrontedwith disparities and discrimination, the great majority are perfectly integrated today. In France, the integration progresses. But it takes new forms...
So, the mission would have become impossible. Girls who take the veil, or the “Marseillaise” we whistle during a match for France-Algeria: the " republican model of integration " would not work with the second generation from the Maghreb. And it is true that these " French people of papers " are perceived as foreigners by the others and by themselves. However real and disturbing they are, these tensions do not have to hide at first the main part of the reality. The immense majority of the young French people of origin from the Maghreb are neither violent, nor delinquents, study, have an employment. A survey of Cereq (Center of studies and searches on the qualifications) on the young people taken out of the school in 1998 shows that three years later, 73,1 % of the young people of origin from the Maghreb worked.

The integration depends on the capacity of a society to absorb populations by the possibility offered to the immigrants, and to their descent, to benefit from the same economic and social advantages as the other nationals. It thus depends on the capacity of the French model to open in the variety and to bring a short-term social treatment for discriminated populations, but source of enrichment of the national community.

National city of the history of immigration: a symbol

The migrants weave gradually long-lasting links with the country of installation. The daily life and the workplaces are the opportunity of meetings and exchanges. For some, the participation in the collective fights, for the others, the commitment in the army, or still the life in family, sometimes stemming from marriages outside the group of origin, accelerate the implanting in the hos tcountry.
For the youngest, come with their relatives, the school becomes, from 1920s, an essential place of socialization and integration. The access to the French nationality establishes so, since 1889, a strong element of anchoring. Of generation in generation, these implanting train a country to the diverse population.

We present here only some elements concerning this positive dimension of the immigration.

The marriages of love and reason in France

The immigrants live more often than the rest of the population in couple, in particular with children. More half of the compound couples of at least an immigrant are mixed couples.
They are marriages concluded between a French citizen and the other one foreign
Figures :
In France, a marriage on seven is mixed.
It unites a foreigner (man) and a French ( woman) or a foreigner (woman) and French (man).
The first type of union is the most frequent.
In 2005, we counted respectively 23 786 unions of a foreigner man with a French and 18 710 unions of a foreigner woman with French on a total of 276 300 marriages celebrated in France. In the majority of these unions, the spouse or the foreign spouses has the nationality of a country of North Africa, follow the Europeans others than French, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the Asian.
Some conditions
It is not necessary that the foreigner is in regular situation (example: visa or of missing residence permit or made obsolete).
The couple has to be of opposite sex (man and woman). The future husband has to be at least 18 years old and the future wife must be 15 years old at least (the marriage must be granted by the relatives, if she is less than 18 years old).
Below these ages, the marriage can be authorized, have obtained after an exemption of public prosecutor (in case of pregnancy).

Integration by sports

At the end of the XIXth century, the foreigners accompany the birth of the French sport. At the beginning, the newcomers play especially between them, to assert an identity and strengthen the community links.
From 1930s, and the development of the labor leisure activities, the meetings with the French people multiply. Between brotherhood and confrontations, the sport serves then as footbridge towards the company of welcome; he allows to learn the codes, the manners, the sociability. For some, the sports success is also a means to escape the labor condition and the most endowed dreams like a hero French people. The press holds a central and ambivalent role in the construction of the representations of the sportsman of foreign origin. The narrative which she writes feeds on stereotypes which send back the champion to his origins and at the same time, tend to transform the heroes of the sport into "heralds" of the integration.
Two centuries of immigration made of France a territory of meetings and multiple cultures. The cultural traditions, the languages, the songs and the narratives, the religions practised " as in the country ", the food or the big parties of the life are essential for the migrants, who try to pass on to their children a part of what establishes their identity. Making it, between exchanges to the everyday life and mutual influences, they contribute to the perpetual renewal of a common and shared culture.
Exiles and migrations also strengthened the movement of the artists and the writers come moreover who, for a long time, do not stop enriching the cultural heritage of France.
These social impacts can find all their sense only if we examine them through wider questions than are the economic, political and cultural impacts. It will be the object of our next searches for the meeting in Potensa from October 24th till 30th of this year.

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