In an ideal world, politicians would hold strong and sincere convictions and would debate on concrete issues aiming at improving the life of citizens. In this world, politicians would strive to raise public awareness rather than to sustain ignorance.
Given the way both the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have been dealing with the issue of immigration, if this world existed it was a long, long time ago.
In the recent elections, Prime Minister Julia Gillard decided to distinguish herself from her predecessor by shifting from a “big Australia” to a “sustainable Australia”. So far this kind of strategy is understandable: as a newly designated Prime Minister and with little time to convince, it is quite normal that she should try to differentiate her policy from her predecessor’s.
It is however more questionable that she should clearly link immigration policy and population policy, which is a dangerous shortcut that could be harmful to Australia in the long-term.
It does not matter whether it shows opportunism on behalf of the Labor candidate and whether both skilled and unskilled immigration have played their part, in particular in the country’s growth. The shift from a “big Australia” to a “sustainable Australia”, which is backed by almost 75% of Australians, appeared positive to Julia Gillard’s election.
On the other hand, after President Sarkozy’s popularity plumbed the depths in July 2010 (26% of favourable opinion), he gave a very strong speech in Grenoble on 30 July 2010 where he declared nothing less than a “war on crime”, forgetting that the age of prohibition is long gone. In his speech the French President promised legislative reforms to withdraw the French nationality from non-natives criminals.
This unfortunately sounds like Sarkozy’s favourite remedy to unpopular polls; he indeed gave similar speeches on security when he was Interior Minister in order to increase his popularity as a potential candidate for presidency.
Once again, this very negative strategy seems to be working as a poll of 6 August 2010 stresses that 70% of polled agreed with the president in regard to the withdrawal of the French nationality for some non-native criminals when the life of a policeman is threatened.
Apart from being populist and xenophobic, this is just another step in the escalation of a government where the current Interior Minister was condemned after he professed racial insult and where French police imposed brutal treatment of immigrants.
In the end, while Prime Minister Gillard’s communication has not been as ambivalent as Sarkozy’s, the goal remains the same: winning elections. It is a shame that political figures devote more time to discussing sensitive issues in a populist manner rather than engaging in open and constructive debate on what are important issues at many levels. While it is clearly a good means to their end it definitely does not heighten politics.
Arnaud Eard
Arnaud comes from Paris and gained a MA in International Political Economy at the University of Sheffield. He has been interning at Bluegrass Consulting since May 2010.
