France and Migration Between Logistification and Ethical Minimalism
The chapter analyses how France’s migration policies have changed over time in line with the unstable political meaning of both immigration and asylum. By discussing different conceptions of justice as non-domination, as impartiality and as mutual recogni
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France and Migration Between Logistification and Ethical Minimalism Giorgio Grappi
Introduction As a Member State (MS) of the European Union, France’s prerogative in managing its national borders has been inscribed in a European system of governance that both Member States and the EU have contributed to developing (Fassi and Lucarelli 2017, 4–5). In the field of migration policy, this reconfiguration has meant the creation of European directives and regulations and a partial ‘top-down’ constraint on Member States’ autonomy. However, Member States have also influenced the formation of a peculiar European framework. In both cases, Member States are different entities that enjoy formal equal membership but carry unequal leverage and power. As a populous and powerful founding Member State, France can be considered a key case study in a policy area where, as observed by Laura Block and Saskia Bonjour, “what is perceived among politicians as ‘the European norm’ consists not only of
G. Grappi (B) Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. Ceccorulli et al. (eds.), The EU Migration System of Governance, The European Union in International Affairs, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53997-9_6
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formal EU laws, but also and even primarily of what is common practice among EU Member States” (Block and Bonjour 2013, 217). France indeed has a strong tendency to describe its migration policies referring to the European dimension while, at the same time, advancing national priorities. The aim of this chapter is to analyse how France’s migration policies have changed over time in line with the unstable political meaning of both immigration and asylum, by using the European dimension as a legitimizing tool or, on the contrary, as a critical reference to shift political responsibility elsewhere. The use of the different conceptions of justice as illustrated in the introduction of this book (Lucarelli 2021), namely, justice as non-domination, justice as impartiality and justice as mutual recognition, helps to capture the ongoing shift towards a limited and narrow conception of justice by state actors and its consequences with regard to protection of migrants’ rights, interstate relations and the European dimension. By discussing the concept of logistification, a relatively new concept in the study of migration, the analysis undertaken in this chapter suggests the emergence of a minimalist understanding of what is ‘just’ in the field of migration policies, which is based on an operational logistical rationale and results in growing discretionary power in migrants’ access to rights and protection (Altenried et al. 2018). The chapter is organized into three sections: the first section introduces France’s path to contemporary migration and asylum policies. The second section discusses recent developments and reforms around the so-called migrant crisis. The third section introduces the concept of logistification as a way to
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