But, as the recent elections have shown, the French society is quite divided on the topic. There is no doubt that racism and marginalization and lack of integration of migrants who live for years in the gray zone is a painful problem. On the other hand, there also exist many grassroots social organizations that help those migrants - this is also France. France is also a social wellfare country and much of that wellfare is available for anyone living here, even without citizenship (true, only for those who have documents, but large parts of migrants do - and benefit from RSA/Caisse d'Allocations Familiales, free healthcare, and more, along the ethnic French citizens who also willingly use these benefits).
I do not mean to say that this closes the issue, which it obviously doesn't. Just that if we are trying to paint a portrait of the French society as nationalists voting right and hating the migrants, that would be rather unfair. In my experience large majority of French subscribe to socialist ideas. True, that those in power often don't. Altogether it is complex, but certainly not black-and-white.
But, as the recent elections have shown, the French society is quite divided on the topic. There is no doubt that racism and marginalization and lack of integration of migrants who live for years in the gray zone is a painful problem. On the other hand, there also exist many grassroots social organizations that help those migrants - this is also France. France is also a social wellfare country and much of that wellfare is available for anyone living here, even without citizenship (true, only for those who have documents, but large parts of migrants do - and benefit from RSA/Caisse d'Allocations Familiales, free healthcare, and more, along the ethnic French citizens who also willingly use these benefits).
I do not mean to say that this closes the issue, which it obviously doesn't. Just that if we are trying to paint a portrait of the French society as nationalists voting right and hating the migrants, that would be rather unfair. In my experience large majority of French subscribe to socialist ideas. True, that those in power often don't. Altogether it is complex, but certainly not black-and-white.