Aquarius cannot disembark in Marseille
FRANCE - France is not ready for now to let the Mediterranean rescue ship Aquarius dock and disembark dozens of migrants at the port of Marseille, the country’s finance minister has said.
“For the moment it’s no,” Bruno Le Maire said when asked on BFM TV if Paris was ready to respond positively to a request from charities for permission to dock with 58 people onboard in the southern French port. Le Maire said ships were supposed to dock at the nearest port under European rules and Marseille was not the nearest. “On matters of migration, the issue must be handled firmly and clearly, and European rules respected,” the minister said. The Aquarius is the last private rescue ship operating in the area used for crossings from Libya to Europe. It has been at the centre of a row about Europe’s approach to migration since Italy refused to allow it to dock on its shores in June. Last month it spent 19 days docked in the French port of Marseille after Gibraltar revoked its flag. It set sail again last week after first acquiring Panamanian recognition.
On Monday Panamanian authorities revoked the Aquarius vessel’s registration in a move described by Médecins Sans Frontières and SOS Méditerranée, which operated the vessel, as “a major blow” to its humanitarian mission. They claimed that Panama was forced to revoke the registration after coming under pressure from the Italian government. Italy’s anti-immigration interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has denied that his government was responsible. Writing on Twitter on Sunday he claimed he did not know the telephone dialling code for Panama. Also on Sunday, the French Socialist MEP Isabelle Thomas urged France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, to intervene by registering the Aquarius under a French flag. This would represent an “honour for our country”, she tweeted.
(The Guardian)