24 hours without us - Day without immigrants
Quite a dangerous idea but the principal is that a lot of immigrants do menial jobs and account for quite a chunk of the working population.
As a Brit I don’t experience much open racism (thankfully) but I do feel the scorn towards foreigners and I can only imagine what it must be like for some foreigners living here.
I will be joining the protests at lunch time for two hours for one reason only: I want to vote! I pay my taxes here and therefore my voice should count. As the Spanish immigrants said in the 2006 protests in the US – NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!
I don’t think any european country would give people without a specific citizenship ther right to vote… It is not about the taxes one pays ( if one choses to live in a country , it is normal to pay taxes there since jhe/she probably does some sort of waork and he/she receives some things from that community… if someone pays taxes in a country that is not a gift made to that country but an obligation ). To vote and be involved in the politics of a nation, one would definitely have to be an official citizen of that country and to assume that “nationality” as being a definitory thing. I don’t think money and taxes ‘pay’ for this …. It is much more complicated than that. It is about national identity and being ready to identify yourself with that country and its values… At least that is the Romanian way of perceving things.
Hi Rosabell, thanks for the comment. I do understand what you’re saying and it is certainly true of France’s current position, but it does rather make a mockery of Europe.
For example, my husband is French. When he was a permanent resident of the UK, his political interests were in the UK and he had the right to vote. A democratic point of view was that as a person with permanent residence and as someone contributing to society he was included and therefore his voice was considered.
This is the contrary to France. I pay my taxes here and have in the past created employment without discriminating against nationality, therefore contributing to the economy in every way possible. I am not against obtaining French nationalty in order to be able to vote but it does not seem right. At the moment it is not possible anyway as we have not been married for 5 years (despite being together for over 10 years…) and I would have to go in front of the court to request it.
France is a country where a lot of people have immigrant ascendents and denying these people the right to vote is also denying them the right to participate in the country. It is old fashioned in light of Europe and causes political and social unrest. It creates a double standard, a case of us and them which in modern society is difficult. Part of managing immigration is also ensuring that immigrants are able to integrate into society, France has a lot of problems with regards to this and the country is made up of many many first, second and third generation immigrants. But how are people supposed to intergrate fully and become part of France if their voice is not heard?
How did it go yesterday? Thanks for putting this out there. “We are all immigrants”. I’m not sure who first said that, but it’s a phrase that plays in my head often now.
I don’t know much about immigrants ( not from a personal experience, I mean). In my mind, being born in a place and having a certain citizenship are one and the same thing and it is hard to understand a different situation. All the Romanians I know have immigrated because they could earn more money somewhere else and every single one of them is waiting for the moment he or she will be able to return home and live here, and, well, they don’t like living in a different place, they just do it because they have to
. Only those who went to Canada or USA want to “fully integrate”, the rest, in Europe, well, they are mainly earning some money and that’s all . Still,in my country, I would not like to have the foreigners voting because I don’t think they should be entitled to make choices for those who were born here and influence my life and my children’s life through their choices. A few months ago, the actual Romanian president was elected because the Romanians living abroad voted massively for him. The Romanians within the country are now angry on those living outside because , through their vote, they influenced our lives, not theirs. We have to live wtih a president we strongly dislike because people who are “disconected” from our deep needs just thought it was smart to vote for a certain someone 
) I know better what is good to me 
))
I know it is not so nice to be a foreigner in another country… I used to live in Spain and then in Northern Italy… and each time I had to do with their administration… it was awful… queuing for ever… and quite nice comments after hours of standing…
I walked too in Jersey and there they are so used to foreign people that it was just after those expeirences too easy… And Jersey does not belong to EC…