Gérald Darmanin announced that the government would “double the places in detention centers” to bring them to “3,000” by 2027, in The Parisian posted on Saturday. The new administrative detention centers (CRA), intended by 2027 for undocumented immigrants awaiting their expulsion, will be located in eleven cities, the Ministry of the Interior was told: Dijon, Oissel, Nantes, Béziers, Aix-en-Provence, Goussainville, Nice, Olivet, Mérignac, as well as in Dunkirk and Mayotte. Each will have a capacity of “around a hundred places”, said the minister.
Since 2017, the number of detention places has increased “from 1,488 to 1,869 places”, Interior was told. In total, 15,922 people were detained last year in mainland France, and 27,643 overseas, according to the annual report of migrant defense associations. The government had already mentioned this objective of 3,000 places a few months ago.
“Let’s stop being hypocrites”
This announcement comes a month before the examination in the Senate of the immigration bill, postponed several times, and which should make the expulsion of delinquent foreigners a priority. But another part of the text, on the regularization of undocumented workers in so-called “shortage” professions, arouses hostility from the right. Asked by readers of Parisian on this aspect, Gérald Darmanin promised that there would be “no call for air” and that it was a matter of “regularizing, on a case by case basis, those who have been there for more than three years in France “. “Let’s stop being hypocrites,” he said, ensuring that he was passing “ [son] time to receive letters from parliamentarians of all parties to [lui] ask for papers.”
Such a measure, while France already regularizes “7,000 people per year for this reason”, would also satisfy “all these entrepreneurs who ask us to support them”, explained the minister. Faced with the displayed hostility of the Republicans, Gérald Darmanin recalled that the centrists (allies of the right-wing majority in the Senate) were “favorable to this provision”.
An agreement with LR hoped for in the Senate
“Let’s discuss,” he added, being optimistic about the chances of avoiding recourse to article 49-3 of the Constitution, which allows a text to be adopted without a vote in parliament. “I am certain that we will find an agreement, in particular with the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher who is a great social Gaullist and who has no desire, I know, to see the LR have the same positions as the RN”, added the minister, himself elected from the ranks of LR.
Finally, on state medical aid (AME), reserved for undocumented immigrants, he said he was “favorable” but “on a personal basis” to the proposal to eliminate it to “transform it into AMU, medical aid for emergency “. “This is not the government’s initial position” but “it is a good compromise which combines firmness and humanity and I will say it on the Senate bench,” he added.