France’s controversial new immigration law, criticised by opponents as restrictive and racist, is part of an underlying European trend marked by repressive migration policies, particularly concerning access to the right of asylum, an expert told Euractiv.
The French immigration law, promulgated on Friday (26 January), was described as racist by the left-wing opposition and civil society but considered an “ideological victory” by the chairwoman of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN, ID) parliamentary group, Marine Le Pen.
But beyond the accusations of racism, the law is part of a general tightening of migration policies throughout Europe, according to experts.
“France does not have a tougher immigration law than other European countries. It’s a general trend”, Smaïn Laacher, head of the Fait migratoire et asile project at the Fondation Jean Jaurès, told Euractiv France.
In December, MPs and senators agreed on a bill that was much tougher than the government’s initial draft. “The effort behind this law is how to deport as many irregular immigrants as possible,” Laacher explained.
To secure the votes of conservative Les Républicains (LR, EPP) deputies – and, incidentally, those of the RN – the executive had pushed through a text that called into question the principle of ‘jus soli’, or birthright citizenship, limited access to social benefits, and made access to family reunification more complex.
Similar measures are found in other countries in Europe, where the rights of asylum seekers have been recently restricted.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing Fratelli d’Italia party, campaigned in 2022 promising to put an end to immigration in her country.
On 3 January 2023, the Meloni government decreed a new “code of conduct” for NGO vessels rescuing migrant boats, putting an end to “simultaneous” rescue operations.
Once an NGO ship sets out to rescue a migrant boat, it must reach a port of disembarkation designated by the Italian authorities as quickly as possible, without making a detour to help another boat in distress.
In Denmark, migration policy allows the authorities to seize the personal belongings of asylum seekers to finance their reception costs.
More recently, Austria said in August it wanted to reduce access to social benefits for all immigrants who had lived in the country for less than five years.
“The migration policies of EU countries and the Pact on Migration and Asylum clearly show the major trend towards curbing asylum applications,” Laacher added.
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Barbed wire walls and fences
The rise in anti-immigration rhetoric from EU countries is also seen on the ground, with 13% of the EU’s external borders now fenced off, according to the European Parliament.
“A growing number of member states have progressively begun to erect walls or fences at their borders in order to indiscriminately prevent migrants and asylum seekers from accessing their national territories,” MEPs said in a note published in October.
In total, twelve out of 27 EU countries have erected physical barriers in an attempt to curb immigration, including Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Greece and Spain, as well as France, at Calais.
However, Laacher said that French President Emmanuel Macron cannot be compared to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who spearheaded the opposition to migration in 2015.
At an EU summit in Granada, Spain, on 6 October, Poland and Hungary criticised the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum, and in particular the solidarity mechanism for distributing asylum seekers.
The Pact aims to strengthen solidarity between member states and better share the burden of receiving refugees, at a time when some frontline countries, such as Italy and Greece, face a massive influx of asylum seekers.
Member states refusing to accept a certain number of asylum seekers would be required to pay €20,000 for each refugee not relocated.
“This is an issue that touches on the very foundations of European identity,” Laacher said.
The Pact, presented by the European Commission in September 2020, aims to curb irregular immigration into Europe and speed up the deportation of illegal migrants.
The rules currently in force need to be simplified, according to an MP from Les Républicains, who told Euractiv on condition of anonymity the system was “so complex that it has advantages for asylum seekers”, such as “administrative slowness”.
Asylum seekers cannot be expelled until the countries have examined their applications. On average, people wait nineteen months in Germany, seventeen months in Spain and fifteen months in France, according to Alternatives Economiques.
Alongside the Pact, due to be voted on in February, the EU signed an agreement with Tunisia in July that has been heavily criticised. The memorandum provides for a reduction in the number of migrants leaving Tunisia, in exchange for €675 million in European aid.
In a press release, French MEP Sylvie Guillaume (S&D) wrote: “The European Commission must suspend any agreement signed and cannot turn a blind eye to the serious human rights violations in Tunisia, particularly against migrants”.
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Germany, Spain and France top the list of EU host countries
In 2023, the number of asylum seekers in France rose by 8.6% to 142,500 applications, including 124,000 first applications, according to initial figures from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra).
At the same time, Germany registered more than 350,000 applications for 2023, an increase of 51% compared to 2022, according to Le Monde.
In terms of the increase in asylum applications, Spain came second with 163,000 applications in 2023, an increase of 37% on 2022.
The final figures for all of Europe are expected shortly but Ofpra director Julien Boucher estimated that “the increase in asylum demand should reach 15% to 20% in Europe in 2023”.
Erdogan promises Meloni to curb migrant flows
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was welcomed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Sunday, a meeting that appears to have laid the groundwork for an upcoming agreement between Italy and Turkey to curb the arrival of migrants from Libya.
[Edited by Théo Bourgery-Gonse/Zoran Radosavljevic]
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