Rough ride for Macron’s migrant law
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Paris, Feb. 19: French President Emmanuel Macron faces a difficult week as lawmakers weigh up a controversial Bill that toughens France’s stance on migrants, with even some of his own party reluctant to back it.
After France processed a record 100,000 asylum applications last year, Mr Macron vowed to grant asylum faster but also to deport economic migrants more swiftly, while better integrating those who stay.
The new law will be presented to his cabinet on Wednesday ahead of parliamentary debates that promise to be stormy, with migrant charities and leftwingers blasting the bill as repressive.
Staff at France’s asylum court and the Ofpra refugee protection office are even set to strike on Wednesday over a law that unions have blasted as “an unquestionable break with France’s tradition of asylum”.
Centrist upstart Mr Macron came to power in May in an election that saw his far- right opponent Marine Le Pen ride concerns over immigration to a record 34 percent of the vote. While the infamous migrant “Jungle” camp in Calais was demolished in 2016, young Africans and South Asians continue to head to the coast hoping to stow away to Britain, while others are camped out on the streets of Paris.
Mr Macron is under pressure to toughen his policy in a country where 63 per cent told a BVA survey this month that there are too many immigrants, and has promised a policy that that mixes “efficiency” with “humanity”.
But his proposals are under fire from both sides,
Staff at France’s asylum court and the Ofpra refugee protection office are even set to strike on Wednesday over a law that unions have blasted as “an unquestionable break with France’s tradition of asylum” with the rightwing Opposition Republicans party branding them “too timid” and NGOs saying they erode the rights of the vulnerable. “We’re asking for it to be withdrawn,” said the Cimade charity which works with migrants.