French Press Review 21 February 2018

French cabinet meets to discuss the draft immigration law amid fears that France is on the verge of becoming a migrant expulsion machine.

Today's papers are all about the controversial draft immigration bill which French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb is set to present to the cabinet Wednesday.

Most of the publications claim that the legislation has come under strong criticism from associations adding that it has even sparked a wave of indignation right inside President Emmanuel Macron's party due to what is described as the hardening of conditions for asylum seekers.

One of the clauses reduces the deadline for the handling of asylum related cases and expulsions to six months.

Le Parisien arranged a meeting between some of its readers and the French Interior Minister to discuss issues ranging from his plan to put 10,000 more policemen and Gendarmes in the streets and to equip them with tablets and smartphones accessible to crime-related data banks in about 120 seconds against 15 minutes at the moment.

Collomb explained that the current system to treat the files of asylum seekers is too saturated to handle some 100,000 applications and some 85,000 migrants arrested at France's borders.

Le Figaro commends the so-called realistic policy pursued by the President and his interior minister, but insists that in a matter as sensitive as immigration words need to be followed by action.

According to the right-wing publication Europe needs a courageous and well-articulated vision if it hopes to contain the migratory influx. For that, it argues, EU countries must be able to decide when to open and when to close the door. That's politics and that is what borders are all about, concludes le Figaro.

Libération challenges claims in some right-wing circles that current legislation is to lenient or permissive. The left-leaning paper makes a strong case for the stabilization instead of the measures which saw the sharing out of the cursed migrants evacuated from the Calais jungle in northern France to other communities around France.

According to Libé, the fact that no controversies have b emerged around the operation is proof that it is a success. In the publication's opinion, while it is true that the French are worried and wary about hosting migrants, they are also willing to welcome them once a relationship develops between them.

For l'Humanité, Gerard Colomb has suddenly transformed himself into a migrant expulsion machine and In the Communist daily's words, must be held accountable for the unprecedented hardening of asylum laws.

La Croix regrets the presence of articles in the draft legislation which could undermine the response of individuals and humanitarian NGOs to a situation nobody is responsible for.

L'Eclair des Pyrénées comments about another reform that could lead to a complete shutdown of the country by the unions the proposed plan submitted to Macron's centrist government last week for an overhaul of the debt-laden SNCF rail system.

The paper says that the fearsome leader of France's CGT trade union,Philippe Martinez, has called the rail protests on March 22 over plans by the government to remove some of the privileges enjoyed by workers on the train network.

L'Eclair, recalls the first series of demonstrations led by the CGT in September and October last year over President Macron's reforms to the labour code.

The regional publication believes opposition to the SNCF reform could be another major test of strength just like crippling strikes of 1995 which brought down Alain Juppé's government.

According to l'Eclair it will be an irony of history that it is Prime Minister a former Juppé aide who has the responsibility of managing the so-called dangerous reform.