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France defends not taking in Aquarius migrant boat
PARIS, June 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Paris on Tuesday defended its decision
not to offer safe harbour to the stranded migrant ship Aquarius after local
leaders on Corsica proposed opening one of their ports to the vessel.
Corsican leaders Gilles Simeoni and Jean-Guy Talamoni, the top
politicians on the French Mediterranean island, tweeted their offer on
Tuesday morning as uncertainty grew over the fate of the 629 people on board
the ship.
But the central government in Paris criticised the gesture by the
Corsican nationalists.
“(Simeoni) is taking a position without having any responsibility which
is easy,” junior Europe and foreign affairs minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
told Sud Radio.
“What does international law say? They need to go to the port that is
safest and closest. And we can see that Corsica is not the closest or the
safest. Given the boat’s location, it is between Italy and Malta,” he added.
Both Italy and fellow EU member Malta have refused to accept the
migrants who are now heading for the Spanish port of Valencia after the new
Socialist government in Madrid agreed to take them in.
Italy’s hardline immigration policy under its new populist government
could have knock-on effects in neighbouring France, where President Emmanuel
Macron has also tightened immigration laws to crack down on illegal arrivals.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini — who is also deputy prime
minister — has promised to deport hundreds of thousands of economic
migrants, warning that Italy would not be “Europe’s refugee camp”.
The country has been the main point of entry in Europe for migrants and
refugees arriving from Africa in recent years, with 700,000 crossing the
Mediterranean since 2013, often from war-wracked Libya.
– Italy policy ‘sickening’ –
Any increase in arrivals in France would ring alarm bells for Macron who
has worked hard to close down migration routes from Africa amid strong anti-
immigration sentiment in France.
But a spokesman for Macron’s Republic on the Move party said the Italian
government’s policy was “sickening.”
“The position, the line of the Italian government is sickening. It’s
unacceptable to play politics with human lives which is what is happening at
the moment,” Gabriel Attal told the Public Senat channel.
“I’m a spokesman for the party, not the government, but I can’t imagine
that France will not play a role in finding a humanitarian solution for this
boat,” he said.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called for the boats to “return where they
came from” and said charities rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean were
“the accomplices of the people-trafficking mafia.”
Eric Ciotti, a prominent hard-right MP from the opposition Republicans
party, also called on the government to take a tough line on the Aquarius.
“No French port, not Corsica, not Nice, not Marseille,” he told CNews.
“Of course we should save lives, naturally it’s a priority and Europe
must act. But the obvious solution is returning to the Tunisian coast or to
the Libyan coast,” he said.
BSS/AFP/RY/1630 hrs