Mauries

Dorian

Critical Review

Tiziana Caponio, Gaia Testore « Integration: the new frontier of immigration? Analysing the link
between control and integration policies in Italy and France. » In Migration Society 2012 (n°140),
p285 to 264

Tiziana Caponio is a professor of political science whose research focuses on migration policy and
policy-making, with a particular attention to the local dimension and multi-level governance
dynamics.
She is currently a researcher on the project "Migration policy in multi-level policy contexts".
Gaia Testore is a researcher in migrant integration policies, specialised in policy evaluation,
professor of political science and international relations.

The research of this article is positioned on the integration policy for emigrants within two countries
in comparison, France and Italy, beyond the borders imagined by all, "a line separating two
countries", here it is more the borders linked to the problems of identification and integration of the
migrant once in the country.
We can see that the state tries to play a role in the integration process, to have a control, but for me
it is very complex to justify the total integration of an individual, and that some identification and
integration goes through other institutions, such as the church for example, religion, cultural, aspect
very quickly, too little notified in the article. France opts for a strategy of subdued immigration to a
chosen immigration, with criteria to be fulfilled similar to that of Italy but less strict, selective and
less punished if all the criteria are not respected.

There are new integration policies that allow for the evolution and increase the success of the
immigration assessment, all of which are called "civic integration policies".
Beyond the visual border between two countries, there is the cultural, political and linguistic border
between the country of departure and the country of destination.
Integration is a tool to guarantee cohesion within society. It is a relationship between the individual
and the host society and a main objective to be achieved, aiming at giving rights and obligations to
all citizens.
This article compares France, a country that has always experienced the entry of immigrants, with
Italy, a country that has experienced immigration more recently, whose strategies will therefore be
different.
For France there is a contract (CAI), a contract of reception and integration, the responsibility of the
migrant is then contractualized with the State which undertakes to provide training on secularism,
equality, values, language, by carrying out this contract the migrant will receive his residence card,
it is possible to carry it out before entering the territory.
Following the reform of the former president Nicolas Sarkozy, which aims at a wanted and not
suffered immigration, towards a successful immigration, the refusal of the visa is not immediate,
and France does not sanction the immigrant in failure but supports him and pushes him towards
success, on the contrary Italy is more selective and has an ideology focusing on the "good citizen",
who also carries out a contract, Italy is more selective and has an ideology based on the "good
citizen", who also has a contract, which is stricter but does not mean "less open", on the contrary it
is easier to enter but more difficult to stay, the system in place is based on points, training,
responsibility and integration into the country offers points, Italy "makes people responsible", in the
case where the individual is in an irregular situation and loses too many points, it will be the
exclusion.
The strong point of this article is to engage a vision or a questioning that few people impose on
themselves, often it is true that the border and the cultural barrier are two things that we distinguish
separately, but they are of pairs in some cases, moreover the precision and the details brought on the
various contracts, the various strategic political, socio-economic positions, and the comparison of
two distinct countries is a good thing to support the argument.
It also leaves a lot of room for improvement, especially as this subject affects many countries that
all function differently, such as the United States for example.
On the other hand, I find that it lacks figures, in particular to support the number of entrants to
migration in the two countries chosen, but also the number of exclusions, but above all a more
sociological research and turned towards the relationship between this system and the migrant, that
may be an opening, but I would have found it interesting to have an investigation or facts turned
more on the feelings of migrants and less relative facts on only the functioning leaving aside the
human relations.
In my argumentation as told above I support the complexity of the relational process which I find
implies that it is difficult to consider an individual as totally integrated, where the state wants to
control the incoming citizens by imposing obligatory modules and systems, which are however
justifiable, because the values, the respect of the laws and the language is all the same important,
but the integration according to me does not occur only by the state but implies several vectors like,
religion, church, contacts, institutions of reception.
To further my reflection while remaining in the subject of the authors and the article I will be able
to turn to other reading surely more detailed and covering the negative points given, as "In Italy, the
dirty work of integration" by Simone Di Cecco or then "The process of integration of immigrants in
France: inequalities and segmentation" by Mirna Safi.