The president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella asked Emmanuel Macron on Friday to make a commitment not to welcome “a single migrant” from the Italian island of Lampedusa where more than 7,000 people from North Africa disembarked these last days.
“Emmanuel Macron must solemnly make this commitment: France will not welcome a single migrant from the concerted Lampedusa operation,” declared the head of the far-right party’s list for the June 2024 European elections on X ( formerly Twitter).
“For him who said he wanted to significantly reduce immigration, this is the moment of truth. Firmness or powerlessness?” he added.
A meeting is to be held on Friday at the Interior Ministry on the massive arrival of migrants on the Italian coasts, mainly on the island of Lampedusa. The island’s reception center, built for 400 people, is overwhelmed by this influx, undoubtedly partly linked to the floods in Libya.
The day before, the head of the RN had already estimated that “the signals of laxity from the EU were received 5/5 by the smugglers and by all of Africa: Lampedusa, therefore Europe, is submerged”.
“On June 9, 2024, Europe has the opportunity to send a clear message: no way! (impossible, editor’s note),” he explained via the same channel.
Present in Lampedusa, the head of the Reconquête list (far right) Marion Maréchal assured for her part on Friday on BFMTV that she wanted to “provide support to the Italian people (and) to the Italian government which is abandoned by the European Union, also abandoned by France, and who finds himself alone in managing this situation even though the Italian borders are not only the borders of Italy, they are the borders of the whole of Europe.
At Les Républicains (LR), MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, also on BFMTV, criticized a European policy that is “bankrupt on the migration issue, because European law has for a long time disarmed our States in their capacity, their will to control their borders.
15/09/2023 11:34:41 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP