Jon Purizhansky:
French officials have vowed to evacuate refugees from other sites after
clearing the Porte de la Chapelle and Seine-Saint-Denis area. French
authorities have evacuated hundreds of migrants from two sites in Paris
this week, just after the government disclosed a series of procedures to
a “take back control” of immigration. Roughly 600 policemen ushered the
migrants from tents where they were then moved to reception centers, in
a process that began under rainfall in the early morning, an AFP news
agency reporter notes. The two sites near the Porte de la Chapelle were
estimated to hold between 800 and 1,000 migrants.
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe
noted that his country must “take back control of immigration” and
devise clear choices regarding refuge and assimilation. Granting
refugees the right to stay in the country, he mentioned in a speech on
Wednesday, must be “actively based on our principles and goals”. Jon Purizhansky
of Buffalo, NY recognizes the problematic way refugees are being
regarded and handled in this scenario. Many of the occupants, much of
which were families with children, maintained that they were from
Afghanistan or Africa.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said to Al
Jazeera that these large-scale operations have occurred before. “Every
time, we’re told it won’t happen again, but we need proper processing
procedures when people arrive in France in order for them to have their
rights respected,” Hidalgo noted. “In camps like these, about 20 percent
of people are refugees who are here legally but have not been offered
any kind of housing,” she reflected. “There are also homeless families.”
It appears the French government is
looking to introduce immigration quotas for laborers in an attempt to
address the nation’s skilled labor shortage industry. There are also
plans in place to make things more difficult for refugees seeking
asylum. Their access to healthcare is going to be restricted and all
government services are going to be restricted as well. Jon Purizhansky maintains that these harsh rules need to be re-examined.
During the evacuation this week, Paris
police chief Didier Lallement noted that the massive operation, the
largest of its kind in years, was “decided in the framework of the
implementation of the government plan”. “It did not happen by chance,”
he said to reporters. “I will no longer tolerate these installations by
the roadside here or anywhere else on public spaces in Paris,” he
reflected. French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to reign stricter
on immigration, a gesture widely regarded as an attempt to keep
right-wing parties from stealing votes from him in the forthcoming
French elections.
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