FRANCE’S CODEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
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• Improving the integration of young persons with a migratory background to find work either in the host country or in their home country. This is a more recent goal, included since 2006, with the advent of the new migration pacts.19 Furthermore, in 2009, eligibility for multilateral codevelopment funding and reintegration support was narrowed to only those priority solidarity zone countries that have “large communities living in France and the degree of organization of these communities in France, as well as the willingness shown by the governments of those countries to associate their communities living abroad with their own development policies” (EMN 2010:26). Thus, priority countries benefiting from support today are Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia, Surinam, Togo, Tunisia, and Vietnam. As regards reintegration support, the tightening occurred because reintegration aid often had the opposite effect from the one desired. Instead of mobilizing migrants to return and open a business, the reintegration support, which in Mali was up to €4,000 per migrant, triggered “me-too” actions whereby Malian citizens would follow the example of their fellow citizens and attempt to migrate to France simply to become eligible for this type of aid. Thus, individualized return and reintegration support has been found to increase, rather than decrease, migratory pressure (Martinez 2009:50–51). However, the amounts of reintegration support available for the individual migrant (€4,000 to €7,000 per project in 2009) are not higher if a country has signed a pact with France (Martinez 2009:50). Inversely, eligibility for additional, bilateral codevelopment funding (not reintegration aid), was now limited to countries that sign a bilateral migration pact with France (see section below). Solidarity development and codevelopment were also incorporated into France’s migration pacts, where they form the third component of such a pact. In a migration pact, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will fund the diaspora initiatives incorporated into a pact, such as evidenced by Articles 22:6 and 22:7 of France’s pact with Benin (Terrot 2009:33), even if the overall responsibility for the pact falls under the responsibility of the Immigration Ministry (which, since November 2010, has been downsized to a government agency operating within the Ministry of the Interior).