Today's Date:

A debate on the "brain drain" of the most impoverished countries is at last opening in France and I welcome it, since on this subject, as on everything to do with immigration, taboos and conformism have too long hindered reflection and discussion.

Contrary to the view of many experts, the brain drain is clearly real, massive, as the World Bank underlines in its report, "International migration, remittances and the brain drain", published in November 2005. According to this paper, some Asian, African and Caribbean countries have lost 60% of their skilled workforce. To quote Jean Bodin's famous maxim, "Mankind is the only true source of wealth". No country can develop, modernize, when the bulk of its skills and sources of dynamism, initiative, flee abroad. The huge sums of money migrant workers send back home exceed total official development assistance, but in no way compensate for the loss of core workers from some countries.

On such a complex issue, we must, however, beware conflation and generalization. The "brain drain" certainly means different things depending on the migrant’s region of origin and the kind of skills involved.

For example, the settling in Western Europe of Chinese engineers, in reasonable numbers, is certainly not likely to slow down the phenomenal growth of that country which has 1.2 billion inhabitants and is rapidly expanding the number of its students, managerial staff and scientists. Nor would bringing a number of Indian IT professionals to Western Europe compromise the development of that country which has become a breeding ground for the world's best technical experts.

On the other hand, according to the medical journal "The Lancet" of November 2004, there's a shortage of 4 million medical professionals in the poorest countries, particularly in Africa. Only 50 of the 600 doctors trained in Zambia since 1964 have not left the country. The city of Manchester has more Malawian doctors than the whole of Malawi. How could Africa, with its 30 million HIV-positive people, a continent with a disastrous public health record, possibly extricate itself from this situation if it's deprived of half or two thirds of its doctors? According to many estimates, Africa has lost over 30% of its skilled workforce. I think it intolerable to bring to Europe not just African doctors, but also engineers and scientists, who are the source of all hope of development, without serious provision for enabling their return home.

Nevertheless, neither France nor her European partners can be satisfied with a situation in which huge numbers of the developing countries' elite go to the United States and Canada, whilst the European continent receives underskilled immigrants. In its 2005 Action Programme on immigration, the European Commission stresses that 54% of first-generation immigrants with university degrees born in the Middle East and North Africa live in Canada or the United States, whilst 87% of those who have not completed their primary education or have not gone beyond primary or secondary school are in Europe. Clearly, the best educated, most dynamic, most highly skilled migrants go to the American continent, whilst the unskilled or low-skilled immigrants come to Europe. We cannot be satisfied with this situation.

We are facing a decisive challenge. Like her European partners, France cannot stay on the sidelines of the global flows of intelligence and skills. Our dynamism, the modernization of our economy are at stake. We must encourage to come to France the skilled workers, entrepreneurs, researchers, university lecturers the French economy needs. At the same time, I am absolutely determined to fight the brain drain when it is a source of impoverishment and destitution.

My ambition is to propose a French model of targeted immigration, in no case based on the encouragement of the brain drain, but that of mobility, the movement of people, skills and ideas. We must promote the temporary stay in France of the most brilliant students, highly skilled workers, people with talent. The training, experience and know-how acquired in France will constitute essential strengths for the modernization of the countries of origin. This immigration, useful to France, profitable for the migrant and essential to the country of origin, will have to be entirely consistent with the prospect of a return home at the end of a few years. It will contribute to forming a global network of Francophile elites. By facilitating technology transfers, it will help spearhead the modernization and development of the most impoverished countries.

Our country is today giving itself new instruments for attracting the most motivated and brightest students from all over the world by setting up in several countries Study in France Centres (CEFs – centres pour les études en France), under the responsibility of the French ambassador on the spot, tasked with identifying the best and most outstanding students. The same rationale is behind the creation in the “immigration and integration bill” of a special residence permit for highly qualified and talented individuals. Valid for three years, it will be designed both to promote France’s influence and contribute to the development of the country of origin.

So the key to success lies in the assurance that, after their experience in France, qualified migrants, who come to France for a limited period, will return to their country of origin and devote themselves to its modernization and development. They must unequivocally pledge to do this when they arrive in France. They will return home all the more willingly if they have the resources and facilities to live and work efficiently in their home countries and to make return visits to France. Helping qualified migrants settle back in their country of origin – doctors, engineers, IT professionals and academics – should thus become one of the basic objectives of our cooperation policy.

We can’t act alone here. Our policy must be echoed and supported at European Union level. If we’re the only country asking the migrants concerned to return to their country to devote themselves to its development, some of them will choose not to go back home but to move to Britain, Germany or elsewhere. So it’s urgent to affirm, at EU level, and beyond, in the OECD countries, “a moral obligation to return home” for highly qualified migrants from the most disadvantaged countries, and to make this a central theme of the North-South dialogue./.