“We Don’t Run This Country, But We Make This Country Run”
During the past couple of weeks, the people of France have witnessed up to 600 workers on strike. This is nothing new in France of course, for French workers are much celebrated for defending their rights and working conditions against the greed and callousness of unscrupulous employers. This strike, however, is a strike with a difference, as this strike is not against the employers but against the French government, and it is led by and made up of ‘illegal’ immigrants.
These ‘illegal’ immigrants constitute a significant portion of the French workforce, perhaps 200,000 to 400,000 strong, but suffer a disproportionate representation in some of the toughest and poorly paid areas of work, such as the construction, agriculture, catering and cleaning industries. They pay taxes and contribute to pension schemes, but have neither health benefits nor job security. They are productive members of society but are devoid of any rights within it.
The strikers have given voice to the exasperated ranks of the ‘illegal’ workforce. A workforce, which is tired of “working in the shadow economy” where they are frightened of the state apparatus (which they fund) and easy prey for unscrupulous employers. They simply demand that what they contribute to society is recognised, that they are no longer demonised, and most importantly, that they are legalised.
However, the ‘illegal’ immigrants have been threatened with mass deportations at the behest of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, himself the son of a Hungarian immigrant. Sarkozy has threatened to deport 25,000 illegal immigrants a year in attempts to placate right wing elements and wrong foot the left.
But the simple fact is that these workers are required. Many of these people who have come from quite dire circumstances make France work. The proprietor of ‘Chez Papa’ has long recognised this fact and has turned his restaurant into a virtual strike HQ. Tables once occupied by paying customers are being occupied by the strikers, the very people who Bruno Druilhe admits “created these restaurants…[those that] had the balls and the guts to help me all the way.”
Not enough is known about Bruno Druilhe to declare him a virtuous campaigner for the emancipation of ‘illegal’ immigrants. Indeed, one of his ‘illegal’ employees conceded that “he (Bruno Druilhe) helps us because it is in everyone’s interests, our interests, but also his”. And indeed it is in his interest and those of other employers. The French Confederation of Small and Medium Sized Businesses have warned that the ferocious policies touted by the French administration threaten the very existence of many small businesses.
The point here, however, is not that the worth of immigrants be determined by employers nor the needs of their private enterprises. The point is, that whilst immigrants are portrayed as the bogeyman of our times, in France, Ireland, and elsewhere, they have in fact become an essential component of our societies and should be valued as such. What they bring is far in excess of what they take.
As the Peruvian revolutionary rap artist Immortal Technique, himself an immigrant in the United States of America, said in relation to attacks on immigrants and attempts at their criminalisation, “they call us lazy, but aren’t going to pick their own strawberries, they aren’t going to fix their cars, they aren’t going to take care of their kids, they aren’t going to drive the taxis, we don’t run America but we make America run and we need to start acknowledging that…”.
The sooner the right-wing elements in France and Ireland realise that fact, the better.