There has been a “global surge” across the whole of the European Union since the start of the year, with more than 300,000 people applying for asylum, explained Didier Leschi, director general of Ofii.
“We have an increase in attempts to cross the Alps”, said Didier Leschi, director general of the French Office for Immigration and Integration, on Friday May 5 on franceinfo, as tensions have arisen in recent days between France and Italy over the management migratory flows. Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, criticized Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, “unable”according to him, “to resolve migration issues” from his country. In response, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani canceled his planned visit to France.
franceinfo: Why are there tensions between France and Italy?
Didier Leschi: Nearly 40,000 people have landed in Italy since the beginning of 2023. Almost half of the nationalities arriving in Italy are nationalities that have a relationship with the historical space French-speaking Sub-Saharans. The first nationality is the Ivorians and there are also Guineans and Malians. These people are poorly registered for some of them and therefore go immediately to France.
However, the whole of the European mechanism supposes first that there is a registration in the first country and that afterwards, there is a discussion between the various countries, in particular with France, and for those which really concern of a need for protection within the meaning of the Geneva Convention, that there is a distribution. This is what was being discussed, with a plan to relocate several hundred people from Italy to be launched in the coming weeks.
Do you have figures on the number of attempts to enter French territory?
We have a global push throughout the European Union since since the beginning of the year, more than 300,000 people have requested or submitted an application for asylum in the European Union. More than 30% compared to 2022. The first nationalities are still the Syrians, the Afghans. We have a very strong push of Turks too, Venezuelans or Colombians tend to go to Spain.
In Italy there is a particular flow which does not concern in some way the whole of the EU, in the sense that these are not nationalities which have communities throughout the European Union, but which mainly concern the Italy and France. This is why the tensions between the two countries are high. We have an increase in attempts to cross the Alps precisely because many of them are nationalities where French is spoken.
What should be done to reform the system?
There is an urgent need to better organize the distribution of the burden of asylum throughout the Union, which weighs on Italy, France, Germany, Spain or Austria.
“For a very long time, we have had around ten countries where asylum requests are concentrated compared to the whole of the EU, for cultural and historical reasons. The countries of Eastern Europe see little people from the south of the world.”
Didier Leschi, Director General of the Ofiion franceinfo
This distribution is important because these are people who need protection for many of them. But the difficulty in Italy is the low rate of people covered by the Geneva Convention. That’s why I made the comparison with the first nationalities to return to Europe, which are the Syrians, the Afghans, the Turks. The Ivorians are the first nationality to arrive in Italy.