Poll: 7 out of 10 French voters demand tougher migration policy

The state must adopt a stricter migration policy. This is the finding of a recent poll by the CSA institute for CNews published on Tuesday 15 November. Indeed, 67 percent of French people are in favour of stronger measures concerning the reception of migrants in France, notably by reducing their number.

Unsurprisingly, respondents with right-wing leanings are the most strict on the migration issue with 94 percent wanting stronger measures, and 97 percent among RN sympathisers. On the other hand, on the left, 60 percent of respondents are opposed to this idea, and even up to 64 percent among supporters of the leftwing party La France insoumise. As for Macron supporters, 67 percent of them are in favour of stricter immigration management.

There is therefore a real split between right and left on this burning issue, a few days after the arrival of 234 illegal immigrants at the port of Toulon, in the Var. The poll also highlights that 69 percent of men want a stricter migration policy, compared to 65 percent of women. All sexes combined, age plays an important role in the response to the question asked, since 52 percent of 18-24 year-olds are opposed to stricter measures, while 72 percent of those over 50 were in favour.

The former Minister of the Interior warns of a turning point in France’s migration policy

Gérard Collomb’s recent confessions are explosive: they confirm that French leaders are perfectly aware of the dangers of migratory submersion (terrorism, insecurity, loss of identity), but have deliberately chosen to pursue it. For them, immigration is not a problem, but a project.

“The European Commission had launched the idea of ‘control centres’ to receive migrants. Shortly afterwards, the heads of state, meeting specifically to deal with migration problems, took up this project, with Emmanuel Macron showing himself to be one of the most favourable. […] Emmanuel Macron then proposed (in 2018) to open such a centre either in Toulon or in Marseille, and he asked the prefect at the time, Pierre Dartout, to work on it. I was then Minister of the Interior, and I was totally against this project.”

What were the reasons for this?

“All my teams showed me that, given French and European legislation, if we receive migrants in this type of centre, we will not be able to make them leave, and we will find ourselves in the same situation as Italy, Malta and Greece, which are countries of first entry.”

But Macron insisted, even after the commemoration of the death on 1 October 2018, in Marseille of two young girls, Laura and Mauranne, murdered a year earlier at the Saint-Charles train station.

“I then thought: ‘I don’t want this to happen again’. And if I let the installation of this migrant centre go ahead, I would later feel responsible for acts that could lead to the death of people. That is why, two days later, I decided to resign. And immediately afterwards, I send a text message to the father of one of the young victims to tell him that it was with his daughter in mind that I made this decision,” said Collomb.

Collomb has never talked about the real circumstances of his resignation before and he said he never intended to do so. “If I had said that at the time, I would seriously have harmed Emmanuel Macron. If I had spoken out before the presidential election, my intervention could have reversed the result of that election, and Marine Le Pen would have been elected. That’s why I kept quiet.”

Why speak out now?

“I thought the issue was settled. We had refused to welcome the Aquarius in 2018, Emmanuel Macron had shown firmness then and the subject of “control centres” seemed to me to belong to the past. By welcoming the Ocean Viking now, we are opening a new breach, creating a precedent.

“For me, this can only encourage the smuggling networks for whom migrants are a source of considerable profit – figures vary from 7 to 30 billion euros worldwide. In the case of the Ocean Viking, we can see that it was these networks that brought the migrants to Libya, and that downstream those who want to reach England, for example, will be taken over by these same networks, with the consequence that we saw this summer, when an impressive number of migrants drowned in the English Channel.

“We can be moved by all these individual cases, but to limit ourselves to a reaction of sensitivity, we reinforce the problem more than we solve it, by creating a pull factor.”