The New York Times had an editorial yesterday denouncing, a proposed amendment, the Mariani amendment to a new French immigration law that would make it possible for immigrants to “voluntarily” use DNA to prove that the people they want to join them in France are indeed related to them by blood. The New York Times writes that this amendment is abject. Sugary excerpt:
Immigration issues bring out the worst instincts in politicians who should know better. DNA testing can be a useful tool in establishing criminal guilt or innocence. But it has no rightful place in immigration law. Modern French families, like modern American families, are constituted on many bases besides bloodlines and genetics. This is something most French politicians and voters should be aware of.
They should also be aware of the cautionary lessons of modern French history. Under the Nazi occupiers and their Vichy collaborators, pseudoscientific notions of pure descent were introduced into French law with tragic consequences.
[…] Though himself the son of a Hungarian immigrant, Mr. Sarkozy has made his political name with harsh criticism of more recent immigrants, especially North African Arabs. His pandering on this issue helped win him votes that used to go to far-right extremists like the perennial presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Immigrant bashing is an effective vote-getter. Unfortunately, it leads to bad laws, bad policies and needless human suffering for the individuals and families it targets and exploits. Mr. Sarkozy wants to be seen as a statesman. He should act like one.
The problem is that politics in France is the same as it is in the United States and French politicians, even when they have superhuman power as Sarkozy does, govern by appealing to their political base. Sarkozy was elected by tying together immigration and national identity and by promising to be tougher on people who dumbed down French identity and culture. He cannot, now that he is president govern, as the New York Times wants it to govern. In other words, what I am suggesting is that the time for the New York Times to give lessons to Sarkozy on how to be a statesman was before the French elections when he was using immigration and immigrants to get himself elected. It is too late now to criticize for doing what he got elected to do especially that the times has been singing his Atlanticism and pro-American stance by arguing that he was going to revolutionize France.
Comments