WORKSHOP 2 LOCAL BODIES AS ACTORS FOR INTEGRATION SERVICES IN FRANCE

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1 WORKSHOP 2 LOCAL BODIES AS ACTORS FOR INTEGRATION SERVICES IN FRANCE (by Marie-José BERNARDOT / French Home Office / Well coming and nationality service) In France, welcome and integration policies are mainly identified as a national public policy managed by the services of the Ministry of the Interior. This policy isn t delegated as a competence of local authorities; at the regional level this policy is lead by public administrations of the State; however, elected local levels are frequently involved in welcome and integration actions because they are responsible for access to social benefits, the school system et cetera. Up to now, we haven t got a governance system which manages and combines national and local policies. As you know, we have many local levels of administration depending on elected authorities: REGIONS (we now have 26 regions, the overseas regions included, but our National Assembly will soon adopt a law reducing the number to 13 in order to simplify the administration) The region is responsible for training policies, local development and economy, building secondary schools DEPARTEMENTS (we have 101 with Mayotte) : this elected level is responsible for local social policies and access to social benefits, protection and care of children and minors, social benefits for old and disabled persons et cetera for the whole population, foreign nationals (with resident permit) as well as French citizens ;

2 CITIES and URBAN AREAS are not obliged to take careof foreigners and new migrants, but in reality they do so because they represent the level which is closest to the population (and people live in the towns and suburbs), so cities have implemented voluntary programs and actions for foreigners. I would like to give you some examples of this involvement. Cities have mainly developed actions about the following topics: Foreigners or citizenship councils in order to involve representatives of foreigners associations in local policy many big cities have established this sort of council; it is the case of Paris, Nantes, Rennes, Grenoble, Strasbourg, Roubaix in the North of France, and many other cities have made this choice; as you know, in France non EU foreigners can t vote at local elections, which would otherwise be a way to include them in the local community. French language courses are very often organized by the cities services or by local social associations or organizations such as social centers which are financed by the municipalities ; these language courses often combine the acquirement of language skills with insight in our country s social values; for example Paris finances this language training at 7,6 M and the total Paris budget for integration actions is 20 M ; Information about social, education and basic services is frequently given by means of flyers translated into the main languages spoken by the migrants; Promotion of the memory and history of migrations and also of other cultures is another important topic : cultural festivals, conferences, intercultural events are the principal tools to promote the cultures and the history of migrants and migrations; I would like to give you more details about some local actions which were supported by the former European Integration Found or by national credits.

3 Several local bodies have seen the European Integration Found as an opportunity to develop actions or start new projects for vulnerable categories of migrants like old people and women, and also as an opportunity to facilitate the dispatching of information about social services, education and the health system 3 or 4 examples of these actions: The city of Paris has been financed by EIF in 2012 and 2013 to improve health and social services and develope care actions for old migrants who live in specific residences (houses? ) initially built for young workers in the sixties or seventies ; these buildings are frequently rundown and not adaptated to old people s needs ; furthermore these old migrants often don t benefit from their social rights, and in the residence there is only an administrative manager and nobody to take care of old migrants needs ; the EIF credits have made it possible to engage 2 wellfare workers to develop care actions and make contact with social proximity services ; Montreuil, which is a big town situated in North of Paris, has also developed this kind of actions for old migrants living in specific and degraded residences, also with support from EIF; this town is known as the second biggest town of Mali after Bamako ; they also finance and organize French language courses because an important part of the town population has arrived to France recently, or they need to learn French for social purposes even if they have been living in France for many years ; like Paris, this town tries to develop contacts between migrants and the native population, using intercultural et social actions, especially for women in social centers. Nantes, which is the capital of a big region in Western France, does not have a large migrant population, unlike the two cities already mentioned, but the municipality developed many years ago a genuine strategy for welcoming and integrating migrants with the different tools at its disposal: council for foreign citizens, French language courses, very well prepared information in a dozen of languages on social and cultural activities, health care and support possibilities, using many different media Thanks to EIF the city

4 has extended its activities with special actions for old migrants (among other things the city administration has financed a very good 30 film documentary which shows individual interviews with migrants from Maghreb, Africa, South East Asia, Turkey, where they talk about their arrival in France, their projects, their family relations etc.) ; it has also financed new projects proposed by the foreign citizens council. In Southern France and in the Alps Briançon is the capital of a mountainous and rural department; this city and the department has a large population of migrant families and agricultural workers ; a social center financed by the municipality, the department and the EIF has organized many actions to welcome and guide migrants about the social services ; these actions are both individual and collective; the social center also functions as a resource center and it has branches in several places and localities in the whole department which organize welcome activities ; My last example is the town of Saint-Denis de la Réunion (an overseas territory) which receives a big migrant population. The town has been financed by EIF to develop a one stop shop (guichet unique) function in order to inform and guide migrants towards the adapted social services on the territory and to help migrants to get to know their rights. These are only a few examples of the implication of local bodies, but there are many more: between 2011 and local bodies got a financial aid from the EIF of about 1,5 million (the total actions reached 2,5 millions ). But, obviously, local bodies (mainly cities and departments) spend much more money from their own budgets and from the social allocations that they administer for the State, which are allocated to social insertion, children protection, old and disabled people and which will also go to foreigners if they have a residence permit.

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