Fresh bid to expel illegal migrants

FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron is set to make a second attempt at increasing expulsions of illegal immigrants after a series of scandals and under fierce pressure from his far-right opponents.

Macron’s centrist government was set to unveil the outlines of a new draft immigration law yesterday to be debated in parliament in early 2023. It comes just four years after a 2018 law with similar objectives, passed during Macron’s first term in office, which was also aimed at taking the heat out of an explosive political issue.

“It’s about integrating better and expelling better,” Macron’s hardline interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, said. “We want people who work, not rob.”

Darmanin and Macron have said that around half of petty crimes committed in Paris are by foreigners.

Macron pitched the new law as a means of addressing the historic rise of the far-right National Rally, which since June is the biggest opposition party in parliament. “We need a policy that is firm and humane,” the 44-yearold said. “It’s the best antidote to the extremes which feed off anxieties.”

Figures from the interior ministry show that France expels around 10% of migrants and the rate has never been higher than 20%. Around 13000 were expelled in 2021, when about 120 000 asylum claims were lodged. The lengthy legal appeals process, bureaucracy and a lack of state resources are seen as reasons for the low expulsion rate.

Like many European countries, France also struggles to persuade countries in North and West Africa to re-admit their citizens once they are subject to an expulsion order. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who scored 41% in the second round of April’s presidential election, regularly accuses the government of laxity and “submerging” France with foreigners.

The gruesome murder of a schoolgirl, 12, in Paris in October caused a major political scandal after it emerged that her killer was an Algerian woman who had been ordered to leave the country. The chaotic management of 234 migrants and asylum seekers who landed in France in November aboard the charity rescue ship Ocean Viking has also embarrassed the government.

The new draft legislation would reduce the number of appeals possible for failed asylum seekers from 12 to 3 and in theory speed up expulsion procedures. It would also remove safeguards for foreigners who arrived in France as children, making it easier to expel them if they are convicted of crimes – a measure designed to tackle teenage delinquents. And there will be measures to offer speedier work permits to foreign workers with skills required in particular sectors of the economy.

Macron’s MPs are a minority in parliament, meaning the bill will need support from opposition parties such as the conservative Republicans, which view the proposals as too weak. Nearly eight in 10 French people think the government has failed to control new arrivals and seven in 10 think there are too many foreigners in France, polls show.