Gérard Collomb persists and signs. Following the statements by the former mayor of Lyon that he denounced before the Spot “The opening of a gap that creates a precedent” with the docking of the Ocean Viking in Toulon, confided the former Interior Minister of Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term to BFMTV and again criticized this executive decision.
“We do not see why we receive a ship today, and tomorrow if another arrives we would not receive it. That is where there is a real problem ”, laments the former boss of the Beauvau venue from 2017 to 2018.
“The place where I have to come is France”
On Friday, a ship belonging to the NGO SOS Méditerranée operating off Libya disembarked 230 immigrants in France, after Italy’s refusal to accept them. His arrival in Toulon ended a 20-day standoff between Paris and Rome. that seriously affected relations between the two countries.
While defending a “duty of humanity”, the current Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin said that, as a form of retaliation, France decided to suspend “with immediate effect” the planned reception of 3,500 migrants currently in Italy.
It is enough to try to save the goat and the cabbage a few weeks before the presentation of the immigration bill, which should create a specific residence permit for irregular workers who work in a sector lacking manpower. Without obviously convincing Gérard Collomb.
“If you put the regularization announcements and the Ocean Viking next to each other and if you are a migrant on the other side of the Mediterranean, you say to yourself: ‘the place I have to come to is France'”, the former councilor of the Lyonnais city.
Deputies “who lean more on the side of humanity”
Marine Le Pen, patron of RN deputies, for her part, denounced on her Twitter account a future bill that she describes as “a new name for a campaign to regularize illegal immigrants.” Éric Ciotti, candidate for the presidency of the LR, sees it for her part as “a form of deceit to go once again towards a form of regularization”.
The idea of Gérald Darmanin would be explained for this former close friend of the head of state by the composition of the presidential majority “which leans more towards humanity than firmness”.
“The president is in the ‘at the same time’, as always. If one looks at his speeches in recent months, he affirms a will to firmness. Then, suddenly, something happens, and he takes the opposite line, that is the real problem”, the former Interior Minister still replies.
“If I stay, I have to clash with the president”
However, the face of Renaissance elected officials has changed during the last midterm elections. Those who had shaken the executive during the asylum and immigration bill in 2018, then defended by Gérard Collomb, often lost the last legislative elections, as sonia crimi or Jean-Michel Clement. Others continue to be chosen, but now under the Nupes label as Aurélien Taché.
Gérard Collomb, who had resigned a few months after defending this text in order to return to Lyon and regain his mayoral seat, now defends another version of his departure. He claims to have left the government at that time to protest against the possible creation of “controlled centers” for immigrants in Toulon or Marseille.
“At that moment I am leaving because I do not want to be responsible (…) for new deaths, new assassinations. The project is not done because I am no longer here. If I stay, I have to clash with the president”, the septuagenarian also advances.
“The line” by Emmanuel Macron “is not mine”
What pushes the ex-socialist to distance himself from Emmanuel Macron. However, he had been one of the first, among his in-laws, to join En Marche (the old name for Renaissance Editor’s note).
“I still warn that the president runs the risk of getting bogged down in something complicated (…) Today’s line is not mine,” the former local elected official continues to reply.
Before openly considering the possible victory of Marine Le Pen during the upcoming presidential election.
“If we continue to have flows of migrants without being able to stop them, it is clear that the next blow is her who risks winning,” warns the former mayor of Lyon.
The ex-minister’s statements fueled criticism from the political class against Emmanuel Macron. “Gérard Collomb’s testimony confirms the immigration vision that Emmanuel Macron never really stopped having,” judged the former president of the National Group about her twitter account.
Source: BFM TV
