Book presentation “Réfugiés. Ce qu’on ne nous dit pas”, Stock, 2025

For years now, Europe has grown accustomed to the incessant clamour surrounding the issue of migration. Far removed from a reality that is, for the most part, made up of international students, workers coming to fill jobs, or mixed marriages, the image now associated with the word “migrants” is that of destitute, exhausted people aboard makeshift boats. For years, this has been exploited by those who trade in misery; while human rights defenders helplessly count the dead in the Mediterranean; while researchers try, in vain, to bring reason to the debate… And while our citizens’ eyes record these scenes—anxious, indifferent, or outraged—always overwhelmed.

However far this image may be from capturing migration in all its complexity, it nonetheless corresponds to a reality: that of forcibly displaced people, of those who had no choice but to flee. And it raises the question of what it means to welcome them. Since there is no reason for this phenomenon to fade away on its own, the time has come to break out of the dialogue of the deaf and the paralysis in which charlatans keep us trapped.

Because citizens are worth more than their caricature, the book’s guiding principle is to inform them—fully. Because the best way to counter manipulation around migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees is not to debunk misinformation after the fact, but rather to provide host societies with the means to form their own judgement.

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, former minister under François Hollande, is a regional councilor for Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Benjamin Michallet is an economist specializing in forced displacement and an associate judge at the National Court of Asylum.