The political debate on the future bill on immigration presented by Gérald Darmanin has already begun. He promises to occupy the next semester in Parliament. And he is hit hard by tragic news.
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Two dramatic events took place in a few days. Wednesday June 14, the shipwreck of migrants in the deadliest Mediterranean since 2016, an overloaded boat which sank off the coast of Greece. And an appalling toll of at least 78 dead and hundreds missing. And last week in Annecy, a Syrian national who had taken refuge in Sweden and sought asylum in France attacked six people with a knife, including four very small children. Two events that arouse legitimate emotion. But which also feed certain demagogues.
Should this new tragedy in the Mediterranean, for example, lead Europe to open its borders wide to all migrants? And would the tragedy in Annecy justify France refusing entry to its territory to all asylum seekers? In both cases, the answer is no, of course. Emotion, indignation, are legitimate and even healthy, but insufficient. They often mask the right questions.
The European procedures in question
This deadly shipwreck in the Mediterranean first raises questions about the rescue conditions and the role of Frontex, whose plane had spotted the boat a dozen hours before the sinking. It also challenges Europe’s powerlessness to dismantle the networks of smugglers, these mafias who extort human beings whom they send to death. Finally, he stresses the urgency for the EU to set up real solidarity mechanisms to better welcome and foster real cooperation with the countries of departure.
As for the Annecy tragedy, it must undoubtedly lead to the correction of certain procedures, deadlines, appeals, but also the exchange of information between EU member countries: it took France six months to learn that the he assailant had already been granted asylum in Sweden for ten years.
But politicians do not really debate these issues. They prefer to send each other anathemas. The right and the far right together fantasize an imaginary “migratory chaos”. The left denies the increase in migratory pressure, however very real. And from dramas to tragedies, all too often exploit the migratory challenge to make their mediocre electoral interests bear fruit.