Wallerstein "Immigration: Backlash to the Backlash?"

[400Years]

As I noted, this is an old story in the modern world. What may be different today is that there is beginning to be a backlash to the backlash. In France, last November, there was an important "rebellion of the underclass" - youths in the ghettos rising up to demand their place in the sun (see Commentary No. 174, Dec. 1, 2005: "The French Riots: Rebellion of the Underclass"). While the rebellion shook the government, which could only contain it after one month of effort, it did not rouse widespread support among the French left, who observed it but did not join it. In the United States, the passage of very repressive legislation by the House of Representatives stimulated the largest demonstration that has ever occurred on this issue. A half million Latinos marched in Los Angeles (and smaller numbers in other cities) in protest. So far, the U.S. left has observed it but has not joined it.

But then, look at what happened in France in March this year. The government introduced a measure without consulting anyone enacting the so-called Contrat Première Embauche (CPE or "First Employment Contract"), authorizing enterprises to hire youth under 26 and permitting them to fire them without explanation within the first two years of employment. This created an important exception to the droit du travail (right to a job), a major conquest of French workers in the post-1945 years. From the government's point of view, this was in part a response to the November rebellion, one of whose complaints was the extremely high unemployment rate of the youth in the ghettos. But, of course, easing the droit du travail has long been a major demand of the employers' association (MEDEF), and this law was seen by them (as some acknowledged publicly) as a first step in eliminating altogether the employment guarantees in general.

As soon as the CPE was enacted, there was a major reaction - from the students, from the trade-unions, and yes, from the ghettos. The public demonstrations have been massive. The political struggle is in progress, but it seems likely that the government will be forced to back down. However, what is truly important about what's going on in France is that a backlash about the rights and economic opportunities of migrants has escalated into a backlash about neo-liberalism and its impact on the whole of the population. This means that the issue of concern primarily from a minority of the population has been transformed into an issue that concerns the majority of the population. What happened in France may well occur in the United States.

http://www.binghamton.edu/fbc/commentr.htm