“France will continue, as long as necessary, to reestablish controls at its own borders, as permitted by European rules, and as Germany has just done”announced Michel Barnier during his general policy declaration on 1er october. Since September 16, in application of a modification of the statutes of the Schengen area, Germany has in fact reestablished individual controls at all of its borders, including with France, for six months renewable, to an extent with powerful symbolic significance.
The decision follows a historic electoral result – the German far right won regional elections for the first time since 1945, on 1er September, in Thuringia – and testifies to the divisions across the Rhine around the question of political refugees, particularly Syrian and Afghan, the most targeted. However, Berlin's decision is part of a long history, which is specific to Germany: that of immigration as essential as it is criticized.
Post-war, an asylum policy and a need for labor
The right to asylum is registered in the constitution of West Germany, the Grundgesetzor “fundamental law”, since 1949. This is the only fundamental right granted to foreigners, and a commitment assumed at the end of the Second World War. “Germany has experienced the trauma of National Socialism and has become aware of its responsibility, it wishes to promote human rights”deciphers Jeanette Süss, researcher at the French Institute of International Relations.
This welcoming policy was quickly coupled with a need for labor, in the midst of the post-war economic miracle. This is how Bonn, the capital of West Germany, signed its first agreements with Italy (1955), Spain and Greece (1960), Turkey (1961), Morocco (1963). ), Portugal (1964), Tunisia (1965) then Yugoslavia (1968) to recruit Gastarbeiter“guest workers”.
In the minds of the leaders at the time, they were only supposed to stay for two years maximum. But, explains historian Wolfgang Benz In Migrations, integrations and multiple identities (Press Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2011), “ [les] On the contrary, immigrant workers wanted to bring their families and did not want to return home after a short stay. They had children in Germany who had few ties to their country of origin.”
This is how, from the first 2,500 Turkish workers in 1961, the country's first community of foreign origin grew, estimated at the start of the 1990s at 3 million people. While claiming the opposite, and despite measures to encourage return, West Germany has become, in fact, a country of immigration.
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Source: Lemonde
