Understanding the Mandatory Language Policy for Immigrants and the Impact on Beur Cinema in France

This article seeks to fill gaps in the literature regarding French cinema's treatment of immigration. Previous investigations of this theme have tended to position immigrants as objects, individuals perceived as creating problems, and as individuals using violence to resolve issues. This article highlighted in French films under a new genre, Beur Cinema, notably in the film Fatima This research discusses French cinema's depiction of immigrants' experiences with cultural negotiation mainly related to the French government's policy of Language Mandatory as one of the requirements for migrants to be granted citizenship. This article will also discuss the portrayal of the French government’s policy toward immigrants and how immigrants cope with the barriers and offer solutions to the problems in Beur cinema. The film Fatima, which was first published in 2015, will be analyzed by its cinematographic signs using the theory of cinematographic semiotics. This study finds that what has been understood as the cause of the lack of integration of immigrants is mainly that the residence permit is not justified. This research finds that the challenges of immigrants are also represented by difficulties in adapting to language skills, daily life routines, raising children, and even communicating with their diaspora community and the local residents.


Introduction
T o d a y , q u e s t i o n s regarding international borders, communities, and language a re o m n i p re s e n t . S e ve ra l demographers, such as Michael T. Martin and Marilyn Yaquinto (2007: 20), have termed the 20th century as "the century of migration," since during this period-especially during its latter half-voluntary and forced migration became increasingly common. Collectively, migrants Submitted: 23 March, 2021, Revised: 24 May, 2021, Accepted: 8 June, 2021 Irawanto, Budi is a lecturer at the Communication Studies, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada and Media and Cultural Studies Department, Graduate School, Universitas Gadjah Mada. He was a visiting lecturer at the James Cook University, Singapore, and at the Faculty of Cinematic Arts, Multimedia University, Malaysia. He completed his doctorate program at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Since 2017 he dedicates his work as the director of JOGJA-NETPAC ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL (JAFF Festival). He has published numerous articles and books, including Film, Ideologi, dan Militer (1997/2017   immigrants, but they also explain the integration of immigrants represented in Beur cinema. Martin and Yaquinto (2007, p. 22 (Brah, 1996, p. 3). These borders distinguish communities, thereby creating social stratification.
As Brah (1996, p In France, discourse on migration has been seemingly unending. Since the 1960s, filmmakers-particularly those from diaspora communities-have sought to explore and elucidate the experiences of these migrants. In this, they are part of a global trend that is also evident in the United Kingdom (African and Asian migrants), the United States (Iranian migrants, African Americans, and Asian Americans), and Canada (South Asian migrants) (Desai, 2004;Higbee, 2014).
Generally, works of diaspora cinema tend to use imagery to explore questions of national and state identities. Using a postcolonial lens, these films are capable of deconstructing and challenging the hegemonic identities that subjugate migrants in their everyday lives (including those presented through film). They may thus be considered political projects, works that present the lived realities of migrant and border communities in the current postcolonial era, capable of indirectly challenging the inequality, injustice, and violence experienced by marginalized communities (Summermatter, 2012). This article departs from three arguments.
First, owing to their significant numbers, immigrants in France may be identified as subjects with the same rights and ability to assert their interests in all aspects of everyday life. In the 1980s, a new cinematic genre emerged in France: beur cinema. The word beur, a phonetic reversal of the word arabe ("Arab"), is commonly used to refer to the second-and third-generation Maghrebis as well as the France-born children of migrant workers from North Africa (Hron, 2009, p. 88 in, for example, Abdelkerim Bahloul's film Le Thé à la menthe (1984), which follows a young Algerian man who travels to France in search of employment. However, this plan is ultimately unsuccessful, and his mother must thus come to bring him back to his homeland. This man is not depicted as experiencing an identity crisis or as seeking to integrate himself in French society; rather, he is only shown as trying to survive.

Immigrants in French Politics
Migration cannot be separated from its historical and political aspects. Migrants, both forced and voluntary, must be able to adapt to and integrate into the systems in their host countries. In 1993, a left-wing party proposed policies intended to strengthen family reunification laws by imposing fines on undocumented families. The government also made efforts to control marriages between French nationals and migrants; to compel individuals who immigrated as children to leave France by a certain age; and to preclude foreign citizens from receiving social assistance if involved in any criminal cases. According to Bronfenbrenner and Morris (1998), employmentdriven migration has effects at the macro and micro level, with implications for nationalism, law, and culture at the former level and implications for families, communities, schools, and everyday dynamics at the latter. Similarly, individuals' acceptance and integration into their host communities is often hindered, and thus they must create their own cultures. This has become particularly evident in France since the 1980s, when the government opened national borders in order to attract immigrants as a means of minimizing the economic consequences of an ongoing financial crisis.
According to Gallagher (2003, p. 34 This proposal was intended to challenge the continued anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Front National, an extreme-right party that supported zero-immigration policies and that sought to block immigrants' access to citizenship (Joppke, 1998). In 2008, the government established a specification of language requirements in the law stating that the language skills required are not only oral skills, but also writing skills.
Although this requirement looks small, it actually expands the government's authority to supervise immigrants, because around 20% of immigrants in France are illiterate even though their mastery of spoken language is high, especially for those who came from the former French colony. Thus, the language proficiency requirement made most immigrants ineligible to enter France which then became a control for them. In 2006, through a speech delivered by Sarkozy, it was said that "France must be able to sort out immigrants which it accommodates, in accordance with the goals and conditions". The idea of selection was the goal of the UMP, the party led by Sarkozy.
The idea of integration gradually turned into a technique of regulating immigration control which was administered by the state. The language acquisition requirement for integration implies that the failure of immigrants to fulfill these obligations may, in turn, justify the state from denying immigrants' access to France by not granting visas, refusing to extend residence permits, or even imposing deportation. Language, in this sense, is far from being a tool for integration, being an effective tool for immigrant control.
Climent-Ferrando briefly concludes that as a new instrument, language can represent the thought of the French political elite to use the discourse of integration, participation and inclusion into a discourse of exclusion and control of immigrants that is potentially discriminatory.

Immigrant's Diaspora in Beur Cinema
Although France is home to many migrants from the country's former colonies, not all are Conversely, Matthieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995) depicts rebellion and thuggery among France's marginalized population (Mouflard, 2014, p. 12).
Migrants receive important support from their family and community, which helps protect them from the difficulties of living in a new land.
According to Wiese, Van Dijk, and Seddik (2009) Local residents are shown to be prejudiced against veiled migrants, and thus driven to reject migrants, as Fatima's daughter experiences when one landlord cancels her contract.

Fatima, age 44, is a woman from North
Africa who is raising her two daughters in Lyon, France. The eldest, Nesrine (age 18), is a first-year medical student, while the youngest, Souad, is a cosmopolitan girl of fifteen. Souad is embarrassed that her mother works as a housekeeper and refers to her derogatively as une ânesse ('a stupid beast'). For the love of her daughter, Fatima never returns her daughter's insults, but remains polite in her speech. Fatima continues to adhere to the Islamic values that she learned as a youth, and these values remain an important part of her identity (Holden, 2016). Nevertheless, she feels disappointed that Souad insists on mimicking her peers, becoming a delinquent who refuses to do her homework, fails to wear modest clothing, neglects her fasting during Ramadan, and speaks harshly to her mother and to other adults (Chang, 2015).
Fatima's relationship with her eldest daughter, Nesrine, is quite different. Unlike her sister, Nesrine attempts to follow her mother's teaching. Citing her medical studies, she politely rejects the flirtations of a young man on a train.
Indeed, believing that she must alleviate her mother's financial burdens, she dedicates herself to her studies. Nevertheless, these studiesas well as her social environment-subjects Nesrine to significant psychological pressure. She recognizes that her mother has paid for her studies by working as a housekeeper, and that many of their neighbors are jealous of Fatima's success raising her daughter (Turan, 2016).
These neighbors claim that Nesrine is arrogant, unwilling to speak with her fellow immigrants (Chang, 2015), and so dedicated to her studies that she has ignored her community. Nesrine is even accused of exploiting her daughter, of enjoying the fruits of Fatima's labors (Hanafy, 2016), andironically-of prioritizing her own future over that of her family. You're the one who would be satisfied." Based on the quoted dialogue above, Fatima declares her happiness; her feeling of joy is only achieved by the success of her daughters. She does not give further attention to the accusations by her peers. According to her, as long as her daughters achieve their dreams, Fatima feels satisfied.

Linguistic Obstacles and Solutions
At home, Fatima speaks Arabic; her daughters reply in French (Ellison, 2015 provides homecare services to refugees in Lyon (Aftab, 2015). This background was likely a major factor in her casting, as it enabled Soria to draw on her own background and everyday experiences as an immigrant. For her natural performance, Soria was nominated for Best Actress at the 41st César Awards (Sanchez, 2016).
Fatima depicts the loneliness experienced by immigrants who seek to improve their livelihoods by working multiple jobs, often in silence. Fatima is depicted as a woman of few words when she is not with her daughters, and she is often seen alone, underscoring her isolation within society and the distance between Fatima and those around her (Hanafy, 2016 (Hanafy, 2016). She sounds out the words announcing Nesrine's success, a validation of her years of struggle. Fatima receives the greatest gift a mother could ask for, and for the first time in the film a smile crosses her lips (Wilkinson, 2016).

Conclusion
It has long been argued that immigrants' This article has focused on the film Fatima, which was produced and screened after a series of violent incidents captured the attention of the French people. Rather than emphasizing this violence, the film highlights the everyday struggles of a mother and her daughters, as well as the language barriers and access gaps that limit their ability to fully integrate into their host country. Importantly, it is but one of many films that present their own ideas and their views of reality. This article thus recommends further study into these films and their portrayal of firstand second-generation immigrants.