On Wednesday, April 9th, potential French presidential candidate Laurent Wauquiez, leader of the Les Républicains (LR) deputies and former president of the Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne region, the second largest region of France, sparked debate with his plans for handling immigrants awaiting deportation. The idea of deporting all rejected asylum seekers to the island of Saint Pierre and Miquelon met with some strong reactions even within his own camp.
Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a tiny, small-population French territory located off the northern coast of Canada. Though part of France, the archipelago lies outside the Schengen free-travel zone, making it a perfect candidate for Wauquiez’s plan to deport all refugees who failed to get asylum status in France.
Although the question of deportations is a critical issue in France, his idea seems to be too extreme to his colleagues. “No French territory deserves to be treated like a relegation zone,” said Manuel Valls, a former prime minister now in charge of overseas territories. “Forced exile is the method of a coloniser, not that of an elected official of the French Republic,” he said.
Even the conservative camp’s leader Marine Le Pen criticized Wauquiez’s idea.
“The place for OQTF [migrants under order to leave French territory] is in their country, certainly not on French territory. The people of Saint Pierre and Miquelon are not second-rate citizens,” she said on X.
Wauquiez is one among those eyeing the conservative presidential candidate spot if current leader Marine Le Pen is forced to step back by the attack of the French court system. The presidential hopeful has already shown himself in the middle of political fights within the conservative camp. Back in February, he was fighting with Bruno Retailleau, the current minister of the interior and former leader of the LR senators. In the ‘war of the chiefs,’ the two men continually discredited each other’s work and political views causing the LR party to experience a divide during a critical time for conservative unity in France.
