(Photo: "Une journée sans immigrés") Di Francesca Casafina, traduzione di Valentina La Gatta A day without foreigners. This may seem a macabre commercial for the xenophobic Italian Northern League party, but it is actually the slogan of the general strike that has been called on 1st March by the migrants' communities in Italy. Migrants will stop for a whole day to demand a greater political subjectivity and the defense of their rights. After the events that took place last January in Rosarno - where the demonstrations of the migrants' communities were followed by a violent xenophobic reaction of the local population - the strike of March 1 2010 wants to be a moment of collective thinking on a theme, that of immigration, that isn't merely political. The credibility of Italy's democracy and of its social texture hinges on the solution to the emergency of migration. The migrants' strike has raised the alarm on a situation of impasse that regards both institutions and the whole of society.   The Italian initiative stems from a similar initiative in France, 'La journée sans immigrés : 24h sans nous!', that will take place on the same day. Even in the countries north of the Alps, the controversies over the methods of integration are at the centre of the political debate. Besides, it is widely-known that the crescendo of racist and xonophobic manifestations is symptomatic of the state of unease that is spreading among industrialised countries. And the terms that this kind of policy has adopted – national identity, perpetual emergency, defense of the border – seem to have the only aim of diverting public attention from a much more complex reality. In short, it is basically the old policy of the scapegoat.   The March 1 strike forces us to reflect more in depth on the model of democracy that we are building and on a social fabric increasingly fragmented, in which racism and xenophobia become worrying signals of a more general crisis of civil cohabitation. And in which even the concept of national identity perverts itself in practices of exlusion and injustice. March 1, in France as in Italy, will give a loud signal to Europe and to its migration policy. It will be necessary to linger on the possibility of elaborating common strategies to give a concrete answer to the failed protagonism of the migrants' community, and not only in a "mere" perspective of management of the migratory flow. It will also be necessary to put forward innovative proposals, capable of stepping over national borders to create a common front of political action that involves not only institutions, but also associations, the working world, and social actors. It is exactly from this perspective that in France the network "Education Without Borders" was founded, substaining foreign irregular families with school age children. The network, which comprises teachers, trade unions, parents, associations and citizens, will be created also in Italy next April, in Turin. This will represent a first step towards the formation of a cross-border movement to defend law and rights.   To further discuss the initiative of a transnational migrants' strike, European Alternatives organises on February 18 two seminars in Bologna and Rome, part of the cycle of conference 'Salon Europa'. Click here for more details.