Macron’s hypocritical speech on February 21st, giving moral lessons and asking for a truce in Syria, was given the same day as his Interior Minister, Gerard Collomb, presented his new bill to close even further the door on migrants and increase police measures against them.
Security council… rich against poor
It took days, while Syrian bombs fell in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus, before talks in the UN between people in high power lead to a call for truce. No one knows if this truce will actually happen, or if it will allow for humanitarian help to reach the people who live in the ruins.
Why so much procrastination? Because the great powers, the ones that have veto power at the UN, are complicit with the massacre. Russia supports Assad’s dictatorship. The US and France, who blame Assad, have led their own war in the area to control oil, and are allied with the Turkish dictator Erdogan, who recently visited Macron in Paris. The same Erdogan who sends his tanks in Northern Syria to butcher the Kurdish people, too close to the Kurdish people of Turkey, against whom he leads a crushing war.
The people who see more and more closed doors
These wars we see every day in the news have thrown out of their homes millions of men, women, and children who end up in camps in neighbouring countries. There are over 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, 1.3 million in Lebanon, this small country with 10 times less inhabitants than France, 600,000 in Jordania… As for those who try to get to richer countries, like African workers also fleeing wars, dictatorships and poverty, Europe is closing its borders and leaves them to die in the Mediterranean or in the Alps. And France, with Sarkozy, Hollande, or Macron, plays a leading role.
The minister of migrants hunting
Even though France is Europe’s most miserly country in terms of welcoming refugees, the interior minister wants to strengthen anti-immigration laws. His bill would decrease the amount of time refugees have to file an application for asylum, and shorten the deadline for appeal when it is not granted. On the other hand, it would increase from 45 to 135 days the amount of time the government can detain undocumented immigrants that it cannot deport. Illegally crossing the border would become a crime subject to one year jail time and €3,750 fine. Undocumented immigrant workers, which construction bosses exploit on underpaid hard jobs, would be liable to five-year jail time and €75,000 fine if they are caught with fake identities, which has been tolerated until now and even encouraged by bosses.
Freedom of movement and freedom to settle for all
This shocking plan meets opposition even among the Macron’s majority in parliament, and within the State Council, which does not see any justification given that the current laws are good enough! The few so-called humanitarian mini-measures, such as additional French classes for some migrants, will not help pass this into law.
Collomb explains that he only follows public opinion. The opinion of Le Pen’s and Vauquiez’s supporters? But public opinion is also made of the people in the Alps who went and helped the migrants. It’s also made of the people in Calais who demonstrated against the destruction of the refugee camps and against deportations, and the people of Caen and Ouistreham who recently expressed the same anger in the streets.
With the very best of public opinion, we will demonstrate in high numbers:
on Saturday, March 17th,
against racism and for full freedom of movement and freedom to settle
