Days after French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that half of the crimes in Paris are carried out by foreigners, figures released by several of the government’s security agencies have revealed that, in certain categories of criminal behavior, such as violent robberies, foreigners were found to be overrepresented at much higher rates.
The data, which comes from the police headquarters and the ministerial statistical service for internal security, was provided to the French daily newspaper 20 Minutes by the Ministry of the Interior, and revealed that in the first six months of 2022, foreigners in Paris—despite composing some 15-20% of the city’s population—accounted for 70.4% of violent robberies and 75.6% of thefts, Valeurs Actuelles reports.
Figures also revealed that, in the same time period, “48% of those questioned for acts of delinquency in Paris were foreigners.” This include those who are residing in French territory either legally or illegally, a cohort that is broader than the one given by Macron days earlier, when he stated that half of crimes in Paris were committed only by migrants in an ‘irregular situation’ or who are waiting for their asylum claims to be processed.
Macron, despite finally acknowledging the statistical phenomenon, nevertheless has refused to make “generalizations,” and added that he will “never make an existential link between immigration and insecurity.”
Marine Le Pen, the leader of Rassemblement National, immediately derided Macron’s less-than-sound reasoning, writing on Twitter: “To be able to say almost in the same sentence, as Emmanuel Macron did, that half of the crimes in Paris are committed by foreigners and that there is no link between delinquency and immigration.”
Macron’s admission comes as he is under increasing pressure to rectify the deteriorating security situation in France. Following the barbaric murder of Lola, the 12-year-old Parisian school girl, at the hands of an Algerian migrant living in France illegally, some Rightist opposition politicians blamed the horrific killing on Macron directly, with some bringing attention to his dreadful deportation rates.
During a televised interview with BFMTV which came subsequent to Lola’s murder, Marion Maréchal, the vice president of national Right party Reconquête, accused France’s political establishment of trying to sweep the glaringly clear link between migration and insecurity under the rug.
“I think that beyond the case in question, the death of Lola is our collective responsibility,” Maréchal began. “This isn’t a random event, nor is it just an isolated case. It is a social phenomenon that is threatening us all. I will be a bit direct, but how many liters of blood will it take to have the right to speak? Lola is not an isolated case.”
“It is the latest drama in a long series of cases,” she continued. “We have to remember the 86 people who died on Proménade des Anglais on July 14, the three people killed in the Nice basilica, the rape of the woman by three Sudanese, and the case of a 69-year-old woman raped by Algerians.”
