COMMUNICATION AS A GOVERNMENTAL TOOL: MIGRATION ISSUES IN FRANCE

Abstract

Our proposal addresses to the way in which national and local communication practices, starting in the 1980s, are governmental tools that institutionalize the problem of immigration and stigmatize young French descendants of immigrants and residents of the periphery. The article presents this process during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) in France. To do so, it analyzes a specific case of violence in Villeneuve, a residential area on the suburb of Grenoble, in 2010, when a group of inhabitants confronts the police after the death of Karim Boudouda. the main objective is to demonstrate that the public treatment of immigration seeks to locate the "problems" related to this subject, reinforcing its conventional aspects. Presented as an expression of openness and transparency of the State in relation to citizens, the public communication on immigration, however, manifests the action of regulation of the public sphere by the State.