Michel Barnier considers the return of an Immigration Ministry

Freshly appointed by Emmanuel Macron, the new Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, wants to create a Ministry of Immigration, franceinfo learned from concordant sources on Monday, September 9. A previous Ministry of “Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Solidarity Development” had been created in 2007 under the Fillon government, during the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy. It had been headed by Brice Hortefeux then Éric Besson, before being abolished in 2010.

According to information from franceinfo, the new occupant of Matignon has begun consultations and the recruitment process for a chief of staff is underway. Matignon indicates that “discussions continue” for the constitution of the government and that “for the moment, nothing has been decided.”

During his speech on TF1 on Friday, Michel Barnier indicated that he wanted “control immigration in a rigorous and humanistic manner”. “There is still the feeling that the borders are sieves and that migratory flows are not under control”he said, promising then “concrete measures”. On this subject, “Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas, I want us to deal with the problems”he said. “I want us to find the right solutions to the problems that concern the French and this is part of it.”

During the 2021 Les Républicains primary, when he was running for the 2022 presidential election, Michel Barnier called for the establishment of a moratorium on immigration for three to five years, a “prerequisite to taking back control of our migration policy”and insisted on the need to “restrict” And “master” immigration, in particular by stopping the “massive regularizations”He had demanded that a referendum and a “constitutional shield” accompany this moratorium, in particular to ensure the primacy of national law over European law in this matter.