That statement upset a large part of the House of Representatives. PVV MP De Jong calls Van Gennip to the House. According to him, the minister wants ‘to bring even more misery to the Netherlands, while we cannot even control the misery we see here every day due to mass immigration’.
VVD MP El Yassini speaks of a ‘no hope’ plan to get young people out of ‘banlieues’ – French suburbs with many problem young people: “The Dutch labor market is not a re-education program for foreign problem young people. The minister must focus on the more than 1 million people who are on the side here.”
‘No plan’
But according to Van Gennip, despite her statements in the interview with the AD, there is ‘no plan at all to bring French young people to the Netherlands’. “That’s just not right,” she withdraws in the Chamber. In the AD, Van Gennip still speaks of ‘really high youth unemployment’ in France, stating: “I could imagine that we invest in those French or, for example, Spanish school leavers to let them work here in the catering industry or horticulture. .”
The minister only says in the House that if people from within the European Union want to come here to work, the Netherlands should help them properly. She also believes that bringing in labor migrants from outside the EU, for which Brussels has devised a plan, should be ‘really the closing point of the discussion’. She first wants to see how the 1 million people who are still on the sidelines in the labor market can find work and how it can be better paid for part-timers if they start working more.
‘trial balloon’
But, says Van Gennip: “People who want to come and work here are allowed to come and work here. That is quite different from a plan to bring French young people to the Netherlands. Because we don’t have that plan.”
SGP MP Bisschop is not satisfied with this explanation, according to him there is ‘still some light’ between what the minister says in the House and what she says in the newspaper. He wonders whether there is a ‘trial balloon’ by the minister, but that is not the case, according to Van Gennip.
‘seize the opportunity’
In the disadvantaged neighborhood of Beauregard in Poissy, 20 kilometers west of Paris, there is an enthusiastic response to the idea. ,,Can I register with you? I would seize such an opportunity”, says Ibrahim Sissoko (23). “Even though I don’t know much about the Netherlands, except that there are a lot of drugs.”
He now has all kinds of jobs left and right. “In principle, I want to work everywhere. I am from Senegal and am still waiting for a residence permit. Part of what I earn I send to my family in Africa.” He is waiting for a friend, with whom he will work as a gardener.
‘Will be difficult’
But the first thing Sissoko wonders is whether it is all possible in the administrative field. Mohammed Al Hassane (31), who has wanted to work elsewhere for years because he does not like his job as a delivery person for Uber Eats, immediately starts talking about papers. “I’m not French, so that will be difficult,” says the Moroccan between two jobs.
In France itself, work is enough, Sissoko also says, if you are willing to work for the minimum wage, about 1300 euros net. There is a shortage of between 250,000 and 300,000 workers in the hospitality industry. The hospitality trade union has even proposed bringing Tunisians to France this summer to fill the gaps.