Status: 14.11.2022 09:17 am
The dispute between Paris and Rome over Italian migration policy leads to traffic jams in southern France. Because the French government is tightening its border controls in response. France is also suspending an agreement to take in refugees.
After the diplomatic dispute with Italy over the admission of migrants, France has tightened controls on its southern border. At the weekend, long queues formed at the crossings towards France. Police patrolled trains and streets, preventing migrants from entering the country. On the other hand, traffic from the French side flowed smoothly in the direction of Italy.
France had sent 500 additional forces to reinforce the borders. The additional controls are a reaction to the delayed aid for sea rescue ships in Italy. At the crossing from Ventimiglia to Menton, police officers stopped almost every car. The drivers had to open their trunks, large vehicles such as mobile homes were inspected.
Paris suspends solidarity agreement with Italy
For weeks, Italy had refused to assign a port to four civilian rescue ships and to let the people rescued from the Mediterranean Sea ashore. Only after doctors determined the plight of the migrants were three of the four ships allowed to disembark the refugees. The fourth ship, the Norwegian “Ocean Viking”, had to make its way to France after days of waiting. The organization SOS Méditerranée spoke of a “critical and dramatic failure of all European countries”.
In Toulon, France, the 234 people were finally able to go ashore. Most of the migrants were accommodated in a holiday village, which the authorities had declared a special “international waiting area”. This puts the area outside French territory and its residents are not allowed to leave before their asylum claims are processed. France and Germany now each want to take in a third of the migrants, the other people are to be divided between ten other EU countries.
“Italy respects neither international law nor shipping law,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told the newspaper Le Parisien. The “Ocean Viking” was only recorded as an exception. “There will be consequences if Italy sticks to this view.” Paris suspended a solidarity agreement, according to which 3,500 migrants rescued from the Mediterranean should be taken over by Italy.
Criticism of civil sea rescue
Civilian organizations – including those from Germany – have been deployed in the central Mediterranean for years. Again and again there are conflicts when assigning ports and taking in the rescued migrants. In a joint statement, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta criticized the work of civil sea rescuers. The ships of the aid organizations acted “completely independently of the responsible state authorities”. “We reiterate our position that the modus operandi of these private ships is not in accordance with the spirit of the international legal framework for search and rescue operations, which should be respected.” The four countries demanded that every state must actually exercise its jurisdiction and control over the ships sailing under its flag.
Italy’s ultra-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently announced new measures against NGO ships. Brussels should take “necessary steps” to ensure that there is a discussion about the future of such operations, it said.