At the time, he had hesitated. In 2018, Emmanuel Macron wondered if he should welcome the Aquarius and its 630 migrants to Marseille. Its Minister of the Interior, Gérard Collomb, is already threatening to shut down. He spends a weekend on the phone with the president, to prevent him from cracking, to dissuade him from accepting. The ship was finally welcomed in Spain, but discussions continued on the reception of refugees. During the month of August, Gérard Collomb observes that the subject, which falls within his competence, has passed into the hands of the Elysée, where he fears certain influences, for example at the diplomatic cell – Alice Rufo thus conveys a sensitivity which is not his. Should we open a hotspot, a closed center, in France? In Le Point, Sunday, Gérard Collomb even affirms: “If I allow the installation of this control center to take place, I will later feel responsible for acts which could lead to the death of people. This is why, two days later late, I decide to resign.”
Rewriting history? What is certain is that the Prime Minister of the Interior during the Macron presidency has never ceased to come up against the ambiguities of the presidential majority, and first of all of its leader, when it comes to of immigrants. And that a resignation has titillated him several times: when he struggles to pass his circular which must allow the agents of the administration to go to the accommodation centers for migrants in order to identify them; when the LREM group almost summons him to a group meeting to tell him all the bad things he thinks about his asylum immigration law. “I believed that Emmanuel Macron was my best friend, in the end I was perhaps the last of the naive ones”, confided Gérard Collomb in Night falls twice, by Corinne Lhaïk and Eric Mandonnet (Fayard, 2022).
On Friday, November 11, the telescoping is spectacular. As the Ocean Viking docks in Toulon, Gérard Collomb tweets: “The reception in France of the Ocean Viking marks a turning point in immigration policy in France.” Is exactly the same as a certain Eric Zemmour, who declares: “There will be a before and an after.” The arguments that Emmanuel Macron put forward in September 2018 to justify that France does not host the Aquarius are exactly those highlighted today by all the officials who, from LR to RN, protest: “I am aware of the tensions which also exist in our country, said the president at the time. If I start to say ‘France becomes the port of reception for all the boats leaving Africa’, first of all that is not a solution to which I believe and then it is not sustainable even politically in France for our own balances. Not clear enough? “Humanism is not good feeling, he adds. Easy good feelings (…) have no future and if I followed this path, it would tip the country towards extremes.”
What a minister from the left had refused to do, a minister from the right must therefore accept. The situations are not exactly comparable, emphasizes Place Beauvau: the Ocean Viking had ended up entering French territorial waters, which was never the case with the Aquarius. But Gérald Darmanin knows that the legal system cannot be enough to solve the political problem that this boat poses for French opinion, at least for some of it. His answer is therefore political. If he pointed to the “unprofessional” attitude of the Italian authorities, it is because Emmanuel Macron insisted on using the term. Then, he asked the planes of the PAF (border police) to be ready right now so that those of the survivors who will not have the right to file an asylum application are immediately expelled. All underwent a health examination and then an interview with the DGSI, so that the smugglers who would be among them could be identified. Finally, an exceptional meeting of interior ministers will be held before the next European Council of Heads of State and Government in December: measures to be taken if a government does not respect its obligations again will be discussed. Emmanuel Macron also wants to consider other retaliation in the event of a repeat offense (France has suspended all relocations of some 3,500 refugees for the benefit of Italy). The idea is simple: try to convince that the situation is exceptional and therefore that it will not happen again.
It’s bad ground for Emmanuel Macron, from which he always comes out the loser, because he points out more than anyone else the contradictions in his thinking and the limits of his method. The zigzag seems to be the guiding thread, we will agree that there are more effective ones on a subject so sensitive in the eyes of the public. “What! Foreign cohorts would make the law in our homes”, already said the Marseillaise in its third verse…
During a meeting of ministers, during his first five-year term, Emmanuel Macron, in the presence of the author, praised a note that the director of the French Office for Immigration and Integration Didier Leschi published for Fondapol: it says that France offers the most generous legal and social system in Europe for refugees. The director of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, Pascal Brice, twists his nose – soon he will slam the door, which will not prevent him from being offered a place on the list of the presidential majority in the elections Europeans.
In 2018, the bill on asylum and immigration tenses the majority to the point that it is largely amended. On arrival, “a gloubi-boulga”, according to the formula of an actor of the time, who, one wonders why, will show his limits very quickly. Does history repeat itself? Gérald Darmanin is preparing a repressive bill on immigration before expanding it and proposing, with Olivier Dussopt, that issues related to labor immigration be dealt with. “A text relating only to the sovereign would have been considered too police, a text relating only to labor immigration would have been considered too naive, we have found a good balance”, estimates the Minister of the Interior, who is committed to finding a majority to adopt the bill in early 2023. He leaves himself the possibility of amending it, for example by limiting the number of regularizations if such is the request of LR.
This entire five-year term is not nearly a zigzag. Emmanuel Macron therefore failed a Prime Minister from the right (Catherine Vautrin) to appoint one of left sensitivity in May (Elisabeth Borne), to reach out to LR in October before, the following month, to take a decision that the right strongly condemns. Between the “there’s only, we have to” and the beautiful souls, the path turns out to be difficult to find. Curvy, anyway.
