France: "We Want to Regain Control of Our Migration Policy"
by Soeren Kern • November 29, 2019 at 5:00 am
"The number of asylum applications in France increased by more than 20% in 2018 while it is declining everywhere else in Europe. Why is it declining elsewhere and increasing in France? Maybe we need to ask the question, why is this 'French Eldorado' being promoted everywhere?" — MP Emmanuelle Ménard, French Member of Parliament.
Critics noted that Philippe's measures will not resolve the underlying problem — that the French government refuses adequately to secure the country's borders to prevent illegal migrants from entering France in the first place.
"The government has decided nothing. There will always be 255,000 legal aliens per year, plus 100,000 asylum seekers, plus all the illegal immigrants that no one has even considered counting, plus thousands of unaccompanied minors." — Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally party.
Meanwhile, illegal immigration to and through France continues unabated.
French police recently cleared more than 2,000 migrants from makeshift encampments in northern Paris. The crackdown comes after the government announced a series of measures to curb illegal immigration.
The migration crackdown appears to be aimed at blunting the rising popularity of the anti-mass-migration party National Rally and its leader Marine Le Pen. She has dismissed the government's actions as a "political swindle" that will increase, not decrease, immigration.
On November 28, police began removing hundreds of migrants from a camp at Porte d'Aubervilliers in the 19th arrondissement in northeastern Paris. The clearance operation was delayed by a week due to an insufficient police presence to guarantee security. An estimated 2,000 migrants are living in the camp in squalid conditions.
