why the obligation to leave the French territory which targeted the main suspect is controversial

Strong exchanges at the National Assembly, a President of the Republic who receives the family of the victim and the right and the far right in ambush on the subject: the murder of Lola has taken a political turn. Five days after the death of this 12-year-old girl, of which the body was found Friday, October 14 in a trunk in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, the controversy surrounding the situation of the main suspect crystallizes the debates. Dahbia B., a 24-year-old Algerian, was the subject of a obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) since August 22.

While Eric Zemmour, a former far-right presidential candidate, talks about “Francocide”a crime committed, according to him, by an immigrant against a Frenchman because of his nationality – and deplores the low rate of OQTFs executed, the National Rally challenged the government on Tuesday, accusing it of laxity in the removal of foreigners in situation irregular. “The suspect of this barbaric act should not have been on our territory”notably accused Marine Le Pen.

The Minister of Justice, who flew into a black rage, replied in the hemicycle that the OQTF which targeted Dahbia B. was not accompanied by an obligation to immediately leave the national territory, specifying that it was of one “voluntary departure”. Eric Dupond-Moretti also admitted not knowing “if an appeal has not been brought” by this woman’s lawyer, placed in pre-trial detention and indicted since Monday as part of a judicial investigation for murder, rape, act of torture and barbarism and concealment of a corpse.

Eentered France legally in 2016 with a student visa, Dahbia B. was only known to the police as a victim of domestic violence. She had been arrested at Paris Orly airport on August 22 for lack of a residence permit. An obligation to leave French territory within 30 days had therefore been notified to him..

This OQTF, for which the law also provides for emergency removal within 48 hours for people presenting a threat to public order, is taken by the prefect and encompasses several situations, according to the website of the Ministry of the Interior: people who have entered France irregularly, those whose residence permit has not been renewed or withdrawn or even asylum seekers whose request for protection has been definitively rejected.

“From the moment an appeal is filed with the administrative court, the execution of the OQTF is suspended until the court renders its decision. So if an appeal is still under investigation, the person can remain on French territory for the duration of their examination”, explains lawyer Nicolas De Sa-Pallix to franceinfo.

This specialist in asylum law and foreigners’ rights specifies that the OQTFs are, in principle, “voluntary removal measures even if the departure period can be refused by the prefecture”, unlike a “deportation order, which is enforceable as of right from its pronouncement until it is suspended or canceled by an administrative court”. A person is also recognized as being in an illegal situation if an appeal for an OQTF has been definitively rejected or if they have remained in the territory after the authorized period.

The government admitted on Wednesday that it had to “obviously do better” concerning the application of OQTFs. In fact, the execution rates for these removal measures have continued to decline in recent years (13.5% in 2017, 12% in 2019, then, with the Covid-19 crisis, only 6.9% in 2020 and 5.6% in the first half of 2021), according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior cited in a Senate report.

At the start of his five-year term, Emmanuel Macron had mentioned the objective of an execution rate of 100% of deportations to the border, supposed to be applied to the end of the 30-day period for OQTFs that are not subject to appeal. “We are working hard to ensure that the evictions” be “followed by effects”, said the government spokesman on Wednesday at the end of the Council of Ministers. Olivier Véran recalled that the executive has “multiplied by almost twenty the number of OQTFs to Algeria compared to last year, which was a rather exceptional year, given the situation on the Covid”.


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