For right-wing and far-right MPs, emotion quickly gave way to positions on the subject of immigration.
The horror, the dread and the support for the victims. These are the first reactions of the political class after the knife attack perpetrated Thursday, June 8 in the morning in Annecy. At the National Assembly, the hemicycle, transformed into a cauldron around the latest debates on pension reform, suddenly cooled.
A minute of silence was observed before noon and political reactions then sometimes turned to recovery. Finally, the one who stands the furthest back from the fray of reactions is Marine Le Pen, the patroness of the National Rally in the Assembly. She contented herself with a tweet where she shares her “dread” and of “the horror felt”. Prudence and discretion which are of course part of its now well-known normalization strategy. But that was without counting on his gun holders who did not hesitate to react, even if it meant overflowing it. “We are dying of this immigration”, tweeted this morning the RN deputy of Gard Nicolas Meizonnet.
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Same language, same tone for Var MP Laure Lavalette. “People who have nothing to do there arrive on our soil. Whether they are terrorists or madmen on the run, the fact remains that we do not have the means to take care of either one or the other. So we obviously have to take this migration policy back in hand. This raises the question of the Schengen area because, a priori, he had applied for asylum in Sweden or Norway, I don’t know. In any case, he had nothing to do on French soil.” people who don’t have “nothing to do” on French soil, so repeats this very close to Marine Le Pen. Except that, according to the first elements of the investigation, the alleged assailant was in a regular situation. Originally from Syria, a country at war, he had obtained refugee status in Sweden. Admittedly, his asylum request in France was declared unsuccessful, but in accordance with European law, he had complete freedom to travel within the Schengen area.
“This profile does not leave indifferent”
And then the right also rushed into the breach of recovery very quickly. And maybe a little too quickly. One of the very first to react this morning, in the Salle des Quatre-Colonnes at the National Assembly, was the president of the Les Républicains party, Eric Ciotti, who, too, does not mince words about the profile of the suspicious. “This profile, of course, and the investigation will confirm it or not, does not leave anyone indifferent. It has a profile resulting from immigration which today must open a major debate on our ability to choose who we do not want and who we want to welcome on our territory. Today, we are undergoing a situation, we must resume the course of our destiny.”
Eric Ciotti even speaks to our microphone about his desire to see all those who “want to save our civilization”. Fast, ultra-fast reaction from Eric Ciotti. In the process, we learn that the alleged suspect declares himself a Christian and we discover that he shouted twice “In the Name of Jesus Christ” before attacking children Thursday morning in Annecy. A president of the Les Républicains party probably caught up behind the scenes by the annoyance of local elected officials from his own camp, like the senator LR of Haute-Savoie Cyril Pellevat, who demanded this morning on franceinfo a delay of decency. “I think it’s a little premature because today, we are already really waiting for good news on the state of health of the victims. We are also waiting for the results of the hearings that will be conducted with the assailant. But I think that today, we must wait to have the complete elements. The intelligence services and others are doing their job.
For the record, Eric Ciotti had planned a press conference this afternoon at 3:30 p.m., before finally canceling everything a few minutes earlier.
The context of the immigration debate
It is in a very particular political context that this attack occurs. A context in which the debate on immigration is taking over from the debate on pensions, on the initiative of the Elysée, since it was Emmanuel Macron himself who asked his government to return the covered before summer. A bill was already presented at the beginning of February. In particular, he intended to create residence permits for jobs in shortage. The right has always opposed it, fearing what it calls “suction pumps” or some “air calls”. The Republicans have even raised the stakes recently, in parallel with negotiations with the government. They tabled two bills. They propose pell-mell to replace the AME, the state medical aid, with emergency medical aid, but which would be much more limited. They want to restore the offense of illegal residence and the double penalty in order to be able to expel foreigners convicted of criminal proceedings.
The man arrested in Annecy was not only in good standing, but had never had any legal dealings, near or far.