He remembers children's gifts of poems and drawings, greetings from windows, and even the chocolates offered to him one morning by a young woman defying lockdown. A garbage collector in the inner suburbs of Paris, Bakary (he preferred not to give his last name) thought that the gestures of solidarity towards his profession during the Covid-19 pandemic had changed things. "Suddenly, people were celebrating us, the frontline workers and immigrants, without whom the country couldn't keep running," said the 43-year-old Ivorian, who arrived in France 15 years ago.

Bakary wishes he wasn't the only one to remember the poems. He has a residency card, but worries about his many colleagues who don't. "Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I cry. Between the bosses who are happy to exploit undocumented workers and those who would like to kick us out, what happened to those who cheered for the Covid heroes?"

Since its presentation in the council of ministers at the beginning of 2023, the draft law on immigration, due to be examined by the Sénat in early November, has exacerbated deep political divisions. It also highlights the taboos and tensions of French society on this subject. A particular area of discord is Article 3, which proposes the creation of a "residence permit" specific to sectors that have difficulties recruiting, in order to temporarily regularize undocumented workers.

Eric Ciotti, president of the right-wing Les Républicains party, has declared this measure to be a "red line", and regularly decries the risk of creating a "migratory influx," borrowing an argument favored by the far-right. Against this rhetoric, some members of President Emmanuel Macron's parliamentary majority point out that these undocumented workers are essential to our economy. "Without them, entire sectors of our country would be unable to function," wrote some 30 members of parliament, ranging from Renaissance (Macron's party) and MoDem (centrist allies of Renaissance) to Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (left-wing, France's Green party), in an op-ed published on Monday, September 11, in daily Libération.

This is not just a French issue. "Throughout Europe, sectors have found themselves faced with an even greater labor shortage in the wake of the pandemic, prompting some countries to review their immigration policies," explained Jean-Christophe Dumont, head of the international migration division at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

"We need qualified migration," confirmed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday, September 13. And with good reason: the number of deaths now exceeds the number of births in the aging European Union (EU). After two years of decline, its population grew by 2.8 million in 2022, to 448.4 million, largely due to migratory flows, according to Eurostat data. "Today, 100% of the EU's labor force growth is linked to immigration," Dumont concluded.

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