The affair of the reception of the migrant boat Ocean Viking continues to rebound and appears more and more like a management disaster on the part of the French government—unfortunately, highly predictable. It is epigrammatic of all the dysfunctions of immigrant reception policy, both at the national and European levels.
The boat docked on Friday, November 10th, in the military port of Toulon. The procedure for receiving refugees was then set in motion, and the French authorities quickly lost control of the situation, with one scandal following another. The controversy first arose over the conditions under which the migrants were received—either too favourable or too undignified, depending on the criticism from one side of the political spectrum or the other.
But the main problem involved the actual processing of the asylum applications. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, while attempting to use the occasion to demonstrate governmental firmness on illegal immigration, produced the opposite results. The judicial institutions did not follow the watchword. After having been initially refused entry to the territory, 123 adults out of the 189 placed in the ‘waiting zone’—the reception centre especially set up for the occasion on the Giens peninsula—were released. The courts were unable to rule on their case due to the lack of sufficient magistrates. Lack of time and procedural flaws are among the reasons for the defective ‘firmness’ displayed in high places.
Darmanin had some tense exchanges with his counterpart at the ministry of justice, Éric Dupont-Moretti, who refused to comment on the matter, limiting himself to describing the situation as “unprecedented.”
Political opposition is therefore crying, not without reason, of a fiasco. The worst fears raised by members of Les Républicains and the Rassemblement National are fully justified: the state has not been able to deal properly with these 234 migrants, most of whom have disappeared into thin air. Gérald Darmanin replied with a reference to the refoulement of migrants to Mali. But, shortly after having spoken of a “quarantine of them,” it was discovered that only two fit this description. Journalist Louis de Raguenel revealed on Europe 1 that out of the 234 migrants who landed, only 6 are currently being monitored with their situation known.
But that is not all: some of the migrants on the Ocean Viking have been identified as “unaccompanied minors.” These minors are mainly Eritreans who intended to join family or friends in Germany, albeit in a clandestine manner. Most of these unaccompanied minors have deserted their supervisors in the structures set aside to provide for their medical and social care. The Les Républicains president of the Var departmental council, Jean-Louis Masson, revealed to Le Figaro that “3 of the 44 minors” had run away the day after they were taken into care. A few days later, “23 more minors were missing, for a total of 26 defections.”
It is easy to conclude that there was a general stampede. “People are not totally in the wild,” said the government spokesman Olivier Véran on CNEWS, trying to defend himself. “This is not a fiasco; first of all it is what we call the rule of law,” he explained, taking refuge behind ‘respecting procedures.’ The minister said that the government is “in the process of contacting” the released migrants so that they “return to the right of asylum.” But the damage is done.
Former Minister and Socialist MP Ségolène Royal is alarmed by the situation: “All these young adults who are now on the loose are potential delinquents. How will they support themselves? By delinquency,” she exclaimed on the news channel LCI. And she concluded: “Can we accept the anarchic arrival of migrant boats chartered by NGOs? The answer is no.”
Unsurprisingly, a poll carried out by the CSA institute for CNEWS, published on Wednesday, November 23rd, reveals that nearly 8 out of 10 French people (77%) believe that the government is failing to control immigration in the country.
Gérald Darmanin, as a response, has invited his critics to “draw conclusions,” redirecting attention to French legal infrastructure: “the law is not necessarily adapted to this situation”—a very clever way of promoting his immigration bill, which is due to arrive at the National Assembly for examination on December 6th.
Ocean Viking: Predictable Fiasco
The affair of the reception of the migrant boat Ocean Viking continues to rebound and appears more and more like a management disaster on the part of the French government—unfortunately, highly predictable. It is epigrammatic of all the dysfunctions of immigrant reception policy, both at the national and European levels.
The boat docked on Friday, November 10th, in the military port of Toulon. The procedure for receiving refugees was then set in motion, and the French authorities quickly lost control of the situation, with one scandal following another. The controversy first arose over the conditions under which the migrants were received—either too favourable or too undignified, depending on the criticism from one side of the political spectrum or the other.
But the main problem involved the actual processing of the asylum applications. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, while attempting to use the occasion to demonstrate governmental firmness on illegal immigration, produced the opposite results. The judicial institutions did not follow the watchword. After having been initially refused entry to the territory, 123 adults out of the 189 placed in the ‘waiting zone’—the reception centre especially set up for the occasion on the Giens peninsula—were released. The courts were unable to rule on their case due to the lack of sufficient magistrates. Lack of time and procedural flaws are among the reasons for the defective ‘firmness’ displayed in high places.
Darmanin had some tense exchanges with his counterpart at the ministry of justice, Éric Dupont-Moretti, who refused to comment on the matter, limiting himself to describing the situation as “unprecedented.”
Political opposition is therefore crying, not without reason, of a fiasco. The worst fears raised by members of Les Républicains and the Rassemblement National are fully justified: the state has not been able to deal properly with these 234 migrants, most of whom have disappeared into thin air. Gérald Darmanin replied with a reference to the refoulement of migrants to Mali. But, shortly after having spoken of a “quarantine of them,” it was discovered that only two fit this description. Journalist Louis de Raguenel revealed on Europe 1 that out of the 234 migrants who landed, only 6 are currently being monitored with their situation known.
But that is not all: some of the migrants on the Ocean Viking have been identified as “unaccompanied minors.” These minors are mainly Eritreans who intended to join family or friends in Germany, albeit in a clandestine manner. Most of these unaccompanied minors have deserted their supervisors in the structures set aside to provide for their medical and social care. The Les Républicains president of the Var departmental council, Jean-Louis Masson, revealed to Le Figaro that “3 of the 44 minors” had run away the day after they were taken into care. A few days later, “23 more minors were missing, for a total of 26 defections.”
It is easy to conclude that there was a general stampede. “People are not totally in the wild,” said the government spokesman Olivier Véran on CNEWS, trying to defend himself. “This is not a fiasco; first of all it is what we call the rule of law,” he explained, taking refuge behind ‘respecting procedures.’ The minister said that the government is “in the process of contacting” the released migrants so that they “return to the right of asylum.” But the damage is done.
Former Minister and Socialist MP Ségolène Royal is alarmed by the situation: “All these young adults who are now on the loose are potential delinquents. How will they support themselves? By delinquency,” she exclaimed on the news channel LCI. And she concluded: “Can we accept the anarchic arrival of migrant boats chartered by NGOs? The answer is no.”
Unsurprisingly, a poll carried out by the CSA institute for CNEWS, published on Wednesday, November 23rd, reveals that nearly 8 out of 10 French people (77%) believe that the government is failing to control immigration in the country.
Gérald Darmanin, as a response, has invited his critics to “draw conclusions,” redirecting attention to French legal infrastructure: “the law is not necessarily adapted to this situation”—a very clever way of promoting his immigration bill, which is due to arrive at the National Assembly for examination on December 6th.
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