Is the accumulation of cases involving offenders subject to obligations to leave French territory (OQTF) an illustration of failures in the French system? While the murder of Philippine shook up the political class on this issue, the government announced on Sunday a new law on immigration, the examination of which could begin as early as “early 2025” in Parliament, just one year after the previous text on the subject which had fractured the majority in the National Assembly.
“We need justice and police who walk in lockstep”
“There will be a need for a new law”, in particular to allow “the extension” of “administrative detention” of illegal aliens deemed dangerous, explained government spokesperson Maud Bregeon. However, is this enough? For Thibault de Montbrial, lawyer and president of the Center for Reflection on Internal Security and guest of the Great Europe 1-CNews interview, we must put in place a “major emergency plan” for security.
“We have on our territory a number of foreign people who are in an irregular situation and who benefit either from legislative dysfunctions, or from administrative dysfunctions, or from a combination of the two. And the priority, it seems to me, is to protect our population. But we must accelerate,” he said at Sonia Mabrouk’s microphone.
“We need a justice system and a police force that walk in lockstep, a Minister of the Interior and a Minister of Justice who move in the same direction, with the same philosophy and the same desire to do the same things, that’s it. that is to say, to clearly protect the French, the time for ambiguities, ambivalences, and small political arrangements has passed,” he continues.
Debate on a new immigration law
But several political figures have already expressed reluctance about the implementation of a second immigration law, notably Gabriel Attal, now leader of the Macronist deputies. An approach that he considers “not totally a priority”. “Making a law for the sake of a law makes no sense,” he declared on France Inter this Monday. “We adopted a law less than a year ago on immigration, with measures, some of which are not yet in force since the decrees have not yet been issued,” he added.
“I do not understand how someone who was Prime Minister, who advocated authority, who was courageous in National Education in his fight against the abaya, can come and say today that a new law on immigration is not a priority”, responded Thibault de Montbrial.
One of the options envisaged is to increase the maximum period of detention from 90 to 210 days, which is currently only possible in relation to terrorist offences. “We did it by extending the period of detention. We increased it from 45 to 90 days” by a 2018 law, replied Gabriel Attal.
