In Menton, on the Alpes-Maritimes border with Italy, the “boarder force” launched a few months ago by the Prime Minister will be strong. Faced with “migrant pressure”, “a doubling of customs staff, notably at the La Turbie toll”, the first French side, and “a doubling of Sentinel staff” were announced on Tuesday by Gérald Darmanin.
The soldiers, who will number 120 instead of 60 currently, will be “in the mountain to recognize the night passages”, detailed the Minister of the Interior, on site. Personnel which will be added to the support of air assets, and in particular drones, and to the additional “mobile force units” promised by Élisabeth Borne last April. “They arrived safely,” assured Gérald Darmanin. “We went from two units, or 120 police officers and gendarmes, to four today, or double that. And this is what partly explains why the number of arrests has increased.”
“These reinforcements are useful but they are not sustainable”
According to figures communicated to 20 minutes by the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture, 5,691 illegal foreigners were arrested in the department between January 1 and August 10. Or 70.2% more compared to the same period in 2022. At the same time, while the number of migrants arriving on the Italian coast has doubled, “we have a 100% increase in flows affecting the Alpes-Maritimes and the “entire Alps”, detailed Gérald Darmanin.
According to the MP (RN) for Alpes-Maritimes Alexandra Masson, “a large deportation of arrivals” would currently be taking place “at the top of the Roya valley”. The parliamentarian, present on Tuesday in Menton, judged the announcements “positive but not sufficient”. “These reinforcements are useful but they are not permanent and yet that is what we need,” she said.
Since the creation of a “border force” in the spring, “the entire system is now placed under the authority of the prefect and delegated to the Border Police [PAF] », explains to 20 minutes Emmanuelle Maubert, the departmental director of this division of the national police. “We coordinate all operations, the system, the collection of intelligence for the purposes of arrest but also of dismantling the networks. » It is this system which will be further strengthened but for a limited period of time.
Very isolated minors
Nothing, however, has been announced to relieve the reception structures for the youngest migrants, the responsibility of the Alpes-Maritimes department council and who have reached saturation for months. From January 1 to August 25, 3,950 of these unaccompanied minors (UMAs) were “intercepted and then placed in shelters”. Over the same period, in 2022, there were 1,925. “Miners do not depend on the Ministry of the Interior,” the minister had pointed out the day before in the columns of Nice morning.
In a letter addressed to Emmanuel Macron and Élisabeth Borne on August 23, the president of the department Charles-Ange Ginésy (LR) nevertheless called on them to “implement all means to manage this massive immigration”. Associations were also concerned, at the end of August, about the “enclosures, illegal pushbacks and lack of support” that these foreign minors would face in Menton but also once they reached Nice, due to the lack of places.
According to RESF, Médecins du Monde and Cimade, “sixty-eight minors were locked up on Monday August 21, in premises [à la PAF de Menton] totally unsuitable and in deplorable sanitary conditions: in the middle of a heatwave, crowded together, sleeping on the floor with only a sink and a toilet. »