France will help Italy deport migrants who have arrived on the island of Lampedusa in recent days and are not entitled to refugee status, the French Interior Minister announced on Thursday.
Gérald Darmanin, who visited Rome on Monday to discuss with his Italian counterpart, Matteo Piantedosi, the crisis created by the clandestine arrival of thousands of migrants in Lampedusa in a few days, highlighted this in an interview with the channel on Thursday BFMTVthat the two countries must work together to achieve this goal.
The French minister added that, according to information received from the Italian government, “the majority of people” who have arrived in Lampedusa in recent days will not be able to benefit from refugee status, because they come from countries “where there are no dictatorships to exist”. and therefore cannot do so, because she claims to be suffering from political persecution.
Darmanin explained that Italy, thanks to the agreement it has with Tunisia, is able to deport “almost 100%” of irregular migrants coming from there to that country, something France cannot do.
Tunisia, which together with Libya is one of the main departure points for irregular migrants to Europe via the Eastern Mediterranean route, signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Union in July – for which Italy played a key role – with the aim, above all, to to combat migrant trafficking in exchange for funneling large sums of money into the country.
France, in turn, manages to deport “almost 100%” of illegal migrants of Ivorian, Senegalese or Gambian nationality, the minister added.
The French government, Darmanin underlined, is trying to convince Italy to implement measures – “without waiting any longer” – of the European immigration pact, which was negotiated years ago by the 27 at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron and which is Paris has already started implementing it.
The pact awaits a vote by the European Parliament.
According to the French Interior Minister, the aim is to “immediately examine” the files of newcomers “at the European border” and immediately deport those who do not have the right to apply for asylum.
In the event that they obtain refugee status, he noted, “France agrees to bear its share of the burden” by taking in some of the migrants.
Darmanin stressed that the situation has changed regarding the political crisis that has arisen between France and Italy as a result of the ‘Ocean Viking’, a ship that on November 11 last year disembarked 234 migrants rescued in the central Mediterranean in the French port city of Toulon, after Italy refused to accept them in one of its ports.
This landing also caused a political storm in France, as the right-wing and far-right opposition rebuked the government for accepting the ship’s entry into Toulon, where the vast majority of these people were released by court order and sent across Europe dispersed, despite Darmanin saying they would be deported if they were not entitled to asylum.
The French minister assured that the current situation is “different” because with the European Migration Pact – which France applies, but other countries do not – migrants arriving illegally in the European Union are systematically registered and the analysis of your status can be done in just 15 days to be made.
The minister acknowledged that in Europe “no one has yet found miraculous solutions” to the problem of illegal migrants” and emphasized that “France is unable to achieve the goal of systematically deporting those who do not obtain refugee status because there are too many administrative and judicial”.
His government plans to pass a migration law in the coming months that would, among other things, extend the detention period of these migrants to 18 months – a measure Italy passed this week – while their deportation processes are processed.
Source: DN
