It didn’t take much for a well-meaning attempt by a leading French museum to alter public attitudes over immigration to backfire.
A campaign by the National Immigration History Museum has been lampooned by some in France for going overboard in its attempts to point out that a third of French people were either immigrants or the children or grandchildren of immigrants.
The poster that inflamed certain critics was one of King Louis XIV, the “Sun King” who was the longest-reigning monarch anywhere, notching up 72 years on the throne of France. His mother was Spanish, and his grandmother was Austrian.
“It's crazy all these foreigners who have made the history of France,” the poster read, superimposed over a portrait of Louis XIV. French newspaper Le Figaro noted that the campaign was “thus rooted in the idea that France has always been a country of immigration”. Badging the French-born Sun King in this debate was described as stretching the point too far.
What about taking the opposite tack and looking at the 17th-century creator of the Palace of Versailles as a kind of prototype? It is all too easy for extremists to reach to a calcified version of an ancient king to write their own present-day histories. Twisting these for the purpose of creating division means subtly exploiting extreme ideas or warped ideologies.
This is particularly true when there is a sensitive social dividing line ripe for exploitation. That was certainly the case in the museum’s campaign. The messages it promoted touched on ideas of what is a good migrant.
Objectively the museum was only making sensible arguments, but it was entering an arena that is contested. The obvious opposite exemplars for those on the warpath was the undeserving type of migrant. Students of Soviet Agitprop know this technique as “whataboutery”. What about the migrant who is not king but a low-level street drug dealer, or worse?
The critics are seeking to give legitimacy to the idea of expulsion – or at the very least, rejection of large-scale migration. This is particularly so in France where there is a strong minority lobby for the idea of Great Replacement – that there are native-born people and they can be replaced by those who settle from elsewhere.
It is important, then, to look at museum’s publicity posters in the light of modern migration. And here the Sun King is suddenly relevant.
Last week, the OECD club of nations explored the evolving fate of migrants across its 24 members nations (plus the overlapping EU). The Paris-based organisation’s report into immigrant skills, integration and well-being was exhaustive in its detail. And in very many ways, it was heartening to read.
It did not garner anything like the attention devoted to the Sun King’s parentage, and that is a huge shame. While Louis XIV’s destiny was pre-ordained by royal birth, what of the people who, like him, are born in Europe having a foreign parent?
The report “Indicators of Immigration” claims that painting a picture of the current outcomes is a stepping-stone towards better-informed integration policies.
The statistics show that one in four young people below the age of 35 is either foreign-born or has foreign-born parents in the EU. It says the achievements it measured for the native-born children of immigrants show sustained improvement. Across the EU, 54 per cent of children of immigrants exceed their parents’ educational attainment, compared with only 47 per cent per cent of their counterparts with native-born parents.
High educational attainment of immigrants seems to benefit the children through life. The native-born children of foreign-born parents outperform the rest not only in school but also in the labour market. “They also reflect inter-generational improvement, notably lower gaps in educational attainment levels compared to their peers with native-born parents than their parents have vis-a-vis their peers,” it said.
There are more signs of migrants’ upward momentum in the data about people coming into the bloc. It says that 36 per cent of immigrants who arrived in the five years up to 2020 in the EU were tertiary educated compared with 22 per cent just 10 years earlier. It also tracked gains in language skills, with more than two thirds of immigrants in the EU having advanced proficiency in the local language within 10 years.
It is not all rosy. The modern-day Sun Kings with a foreign parent bear discrimination – one in five report it on the grounds of ethnicity, nationality and race. One in six immigrants, overall, lives in overcrowded accommodation. "If immigrants were to find employment as easily as the native-born, an additional 2.4 million people would work and contribute to the economy in the EU alone," the report adds.
Overall, there was something in taking on the Sun King's history after all. The big lesson is the challenge of getting the message out that migrants enrich their host society, and eventually themselves and their descents. The fight against the nit-picking and hate-mongering can only be boosted by shining a light on the true experience of modern mobility.
Sun King types are good for all of us.
