After the influx of thousands of migrants on the small Italian island of Lampedusa last week, Gérald Darmanin announced this Monday that he would go to Rome in “the afternoon”, “at the request of the President of the Republic” to discuss European cooperation. According to his entourage, the Minister of the Interior must meet his Italian counterpart, Matteo Piantedosi.
“France will help Italy hold its border to prevent people from arriving,” explained Gérald Darmanin on Europe 1 and CNews. However, “France is not preparing” to welcome migrants arriving in Lampedusa and the rest of Italy, he ured. “We must apply the European rules that we adopted a few months ago which consist of making asylum requests at the border,” continued the Beauvau tenant.
Migrants who are not eligible to apply for asylum “must be sent back to their country”, insisted Gérald Darmanin. This concerns “60%” of them, according to him, citing in particular those coming from “Guinea, Ivory Coast, Cameroon or the Gambia” where “there is no humanitarian question”. These people “have nothing to do in Europe”, declared the tenant of Beauvau.
On the other hand, for people “persecuted for political reasons” in their country, “they are refugees” and therefore eligible to request asylum, “France, as it has always done, will be able to [les] to welcome “.
“Protecting the external borders of the European Union”
“It would be an error of judgment to consider that migrants, because they arrive in Europe, must immediately be distributed throughout all the countries of Europe, including France, which is already largely taking its share,” said he added, before emphasizing: “We must protect the external borders of the European Union. » This involves in particular the deployment of Frontex in the Mediterraneanthe development of “better actions to prevent people from crossing”, but we must also “work with Tunisia” who is experiencing “a migratory difficulty”, explained Gérald Darmanin.
On the migration pact proposed by Emmanuel Macron to the European Union which consists of requesting asylum at the borders, “everyone adopted it” but it has still not been implemented. “Those who are blocking this in the European Parliament are the National Rally,” denounced the Minister of the Interior. He accused the elected representatives of the RN to do “electoral tourism” by going to Italy “to say that Europe is doing nothing”.
Gérald Darmanin will not go to Lampedusa, like the president of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen who presented there a Sunday emergency plansaid the minister’s entourage.