The boundaries of Nord-Pas-de-Calais: a study on the securitization of immigration in France.

This article aims to analyze the migration policies of France through the prism of securitization of immigration theory, and presenting the results of this process through a field study. The securitization conceives the notion of insecurity as a phenomenon politically and discursively constructed (Huysmans, 2000; Buzan, 2012 ). The construction of threats will then justify the emergence of institutions and policies for the protection of a society that is being threatened. In the post September 11 refugees become a source of insecutiry, because security policies had as a main goal the movement control of people. When immigration is conceptualized as a source of insecurity for the political community it will redraw borders and boundaries. The borders have an inclusion and exclusion function which together perform a complex dialogue, figuring an ambivalence in the sense that they are spaces of distinction and contact. In this sense, "cultural boundaries" are constructed and transmitted as groups identities, these borders are erected to limit territorial and social ambiguities. In the french case, immigration and integration policies are guided by universalist republican model, it can be defined as nationalist and imperialist, while at the same time stressing universal political values, such as equal protection of all individuals before the law (Hollifield, 2006). The nature of this model provides a structural problem for implementing policies for minorities, that along with political speeches, against immigration, provided the increase in nationalism. The field research on the situation of refugees in Nord-Pas-de-Calais allowed to identify the results of the securitization of immigration process, which France and the UK are implicated. In Calais, the borders and boundaries are erected in permanence and immigrants remain confined in the jungles and squats. It was possible to clarify that humanitarian actors and activists became part of this process. This research reveals an absence of welcome context (from the government), where refugees are at the mercy of the illegal immigration market and police violence. Moreover these immigrants are living in «securitized» places that are the reflection of a movement prevention for those that are classified as undesirables, then any action that might challenge this system will be interpreted as a threat as well.