Tent Advisory Council Chair Najat Vallaud-Belkacem advocates for a more thoughtful dialogue around refugees

To mark World Refugee Day 2019, Tent Advisory Council Chair and former French National Minister of Education, Najat Vallud-Belkacem, called for the global community to advance the dialogue around refugees and immigrants. Vallaud-Belkacem wrote an op-ed for the French newspaper Le Monde and was featured on the television program Quotidien.

In her op-ed for Le Monde, she cited Ipsos’s research on Global Attitudes Towards Refugees to demonstrate the often polarized opinions around immigrants. Despite this polarization, Vallaud-Belkacem is optimistic about our ability to establish a more welcoming conversation around migrants and refugees. 

“In the end,” she wrote, “we can collectively respond to refugees’ courage with our own honor and a renewed sense of pride. After all, 70 percent of French people say they are proud that their country welcomes persecuted people. When reason struggles to influence opinions alone, why not appeal to the power of feelings and emotions and invoke the pride of acting as human beings, first guided by values, morality, and the will to build a better society, more united and more just for all?”

Vallud-Belkacem was also featured on the television program Quotidien where she elaborated on these ideas, and pointed to what the French business community can do to help.

Read the article here and watch the interview below.