The French word for "deportation" (incidentally, "déportation"; we are not really going very far away here) has dirty connotation. It invokes images of people parked into trains to be sent into isolation.
Back in the 90s, in the days of Pasqua as Minister of the Interior, some of us would express outrage at threats of deportation (because it is such a dirty word) and help those who would come to France in order to escape whatever they were escaping (because expressing outrage doesn't mean jack if it's not followed by action). It would be expected of conservatives not to do anything. And it would be expected of fascists (Le Pen and his cohort) to express outrage at the clemency of the government (nevermind that the government did deport some of them).
Here, at the sound of the word "deportation" and of complaints about "illegal immigrants," very few react, unless it is in acquiescence.
Surely, it is not a difference in weight between pain* and brot.
*Yes, I am referring to Benjamin's essay "The Task of the Translator."
Back in the 90s, in the days of Pasqua as Minister of the Interior, some of us would express outrage at threats of deportation (because it is such a dirty word) and help those who would come to France in order to escape whatever they were escaping (because expressing outrage doesn't mean jack if it's not followed by action). It would be expected of conservatives not to do anything. And it would be expected of fascists (Le Pen and his cohort) to express outrage at the clemency of the government (nevermind that the government did deport some of them).
Here, at the sound of the word "deportation" and of complaints about "illegal immigrants," very few react, unless it is in acquiescence.
Surely, it is not a difference in weight between pain* and brot.
*Yes, I am referring to Benjamin's essay "The Task of the Translator."
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