France sends reinforcements as pro and anti-migration activists clash with police in Alps region

The French government has reinforced its security forces on the Alpine border with Italy, in a bid to ease a situation that followed clashes between pro-migrant activists and police.

As the French parliament debated a tough immigration bill during the third week of April, activists from an anti-immigrant group in France closed a mountain pass used by migrants in the Alps region, some six kilometres from Italian the border.

The activists, who closed the border minutes after they had reached the area late on 21 April, claim the pass is a “strategic point for illegal migrants”, who use it to make their way into France from Italy.

This, in return, provoked pro-migrant groups who demanded that governments in Europe should open their borders to migrants. French and Italian activist groups accompanying some 30 irregular migrants made their way into Montgenevre Pass and clashed with security forces on their way.

“Violence was committed against security forces and a gendarme vehicle was damaged,” the French interior ministry said in a statement about the pro-migrant activists.

Commenting in the border closure by the anti-migrants activists, French interior minister Gérard Collomb condemned the act as “lowly” and “unacceptable”, and said that law enforcement officials were the only ones with the power to carry out border controls.

“Faced with these unacceptable actions significant police and gendarme reinforcement would be deployed,” Collomb said.

According to Collomb the reinforced security forces will “ensure absolute respect for the control of the border”.

Meanwhile, former interior minister Brice Hortefeux, in an interview with French media, said that the government could not afford to ignore the hard-right activists.

“I utterly condemn this initiative, but at the same time we must pay attention to the message it carries… some people obviously resent the government for failing to stem the migrant flow to France,” Hortefeux said.

On 22 April, the French parliament approved a bill that toughens immigration laws in the country.

Among other measures, the legislation will help to “better control” immigration by speeding up the asylum process, accelerating deportations, and introducing a one-year prison sentence for entering France illegally.

Because they are considered economic migrants, very few of the thousands of young men who made their way from West Africa have any hope of being granted refugee status.

TMP – 01/06/2018