Reconquest candidate Damien Rieu, who was eliminated this Sunday for the general elections in the Alpes-Maritimes, presented himself in a video published on June 8 on social networks as he “secretly” crossed the Franco-Italian border. In the sequence, he takes the “route of migrants” from Mortola, Italy, from where “migrants leave when they want to cross the border and reach France”. The goal: to check border security. In a few seconds of video, he criss-crosses a dirt road, passes a ramshackle barrier and heads for the port of Menton without “any checks,” he points out. The former activist with the far-right group Génération Identitaire concludes by proposing “maximum pressure on Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and on the government” if he is elected so that what he calls “seven” the borders. ‘, be ‘secured and guarded’.
Several of his political opponents reacted to the video, which went viral on social networks, and replied that Italy and France are part of the Schengen area, in which the free movement of people between member territories applies. The members of the presidential majority therefore react with irony to the Reconquest candidate on their Twitter account. EU Renaissance (formerly LREM): “a single area of free movement between countries that have chosen it… We could even call it the Schengen area”.
Temporary restoration of border control
However, if France is indeed part of the Schengen area, it temporarily restored border control from May 1 to October 31, 2022 “in connection with Covid-19”, we read on the European Commission’s website. In fact, the Schengen Borders Code gives Member States the possibility to “temporarily” restore their controls “in the event of a serious threat to public order or internal security”. Article 25 of the Schengen Borders Code provides that “the overall duration of the reintroduction of border controls at internal borders […] must not exceed six months.
Since 2015, the reintroduction of border controls has continued to be renewed almost every six months. This was the case ten times between December 14, 2015 and April 30, 2019 due to the terrorist threat following the attacks on the territory, but also the organization of events such as the European Football Championship in July 2016. between May 1st, 2019 and the last May 1st, the report was registered six times due to the global Covid-19 pandemic and the “persistent terrorist threat”. This data is included in the list of notifications from Member States published by the EU. “The last extension was communicated to the European Commission due to the ongoing terrorist threat, the evolution of the international situation, the secondary migration flows and the risks related to the Covid-19 epidemic,” confirms the Ministry of the Interior to CheckNews.
“The freedom to come and go remains the rule”
Faced with this almost systematic renewal, the police union SGP confided to France 3 Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur in May that “since 2015, the staff in charge of carrying out checks have been faced with the establishment of non-freedom of movement. A political decision that we don’t have to comment.” Also the statement that “in contrast to a free movement regime there [leur] is possible [se] station at a certain point in time to carry out checks”.
In response to a request from CheckNews, the Ministry of the Interior recalled that “the reinstatement of internal border controls does not provide for systematic checks on people entering or leaving French territory. This text provides for a strengthening of border controls, freedom of entry and exit within the Schengen area remains the rule.”
At the Alpes-Maritimes border, explains Beauvau, this reinforcement of controls is as follows: “Controls are carried out 24 hours a day at eight approved border crossing points (PPA, listed by decree and validated by the European Union) where there are points are highway, road, or rail controls. The EU regularly updates the list of border crossing points where border controls are permitted. The last one, dated April 26th, identifies five locations in Menton: Saint-Ludovic Bridge, La Turbie, Central Station, Garavan Station and Saint-Louis Bridge. In the video, Damien Rieu speaks well of being “taken down by Garavan, a district of Menton near the border with Italy. However, there is no confirmation in the sequence of the former Generation Identity activist passing through the train station where the aforementioned fixed checkpoint is located.
In theory, Damien Rieu could have been controlled
Failure to pass through these approved border crossings does not mean a lack of control. Indeed, the ministry explains, “The pedestrian and secondary bypass roads will be monitored by mobile patrols. In the sector between Mortola and Menton-Garavan, this front-line surveillance is carried out in 24 hours by a company of Army Sentinels (60 men). The mission of this company is to detect groups of migrants moving along the trails. If the detection is made, the services of the PAF [la police aux frontières, ndlr] are informed and come to challenge the illegal immigrants to bring them back to the SPAFT in Menton [le service de la police aux frontières terrestres] and handed over to the Italian authorities. In some cases it may be decided to let through small groups sent as scouts at night or during the day, and to challenge the groups that follow them and arrive in larger numbers – secondarily by mobile patrols tasked with day as well as night to roaming Arresting people on foot – on the third line, at bus stops and in secondary train stations early in the morning from 05:00 a.m.
In theory Damien Rieu could have been controlled. But the fact that this was not the case does not mean that there is no control in this area. The ministry also confirms that “sixteen migrants were arrested on the night of June 7-8, when the videotaping took place (three Egyptians, two Guineans, one Ethiopian, four Moroccans, two Afghans, one Chadian, two Tunisians and a Bangladesh). All were handed over to Italian authorities, with the exception of one minor who was placed in a home – of the 16, three were arrested at Menton-Garavan train station, six at PPA Saint-Ludovic, one at Menton-Centre-Ville, five on the motorway A8 and one in the Roya Valley: Ten people were therefore arrested that night in the sector where Damien Rieu was located (e.g. PPA Menton-Garavan, PPA Saint-Ludovic, Menton-Centre-Ville). To this must be added two trucks intercepted early in the morning of June 8 at the Turbie toll booth with nine migrants hidden in the trailers, migrants smuggled into the trailers at the Ventimiglia car port at night.
A renewal of illegal control?
At a time when Reconquest candidates are campaigning for tightening controls and claiming to have exposed their shortcomings, several organizations are decrying the resumption of derogatory border controls. On May 10, four associations, Anafé (National Association for Border Assistance to Foreigners), Gisti (Information Assistance Group for Immigrants), Cimade (Inter-Movement Committee for Evacuees) and Ligue Human Rights, attacked the Council of State the exception to the renewed since 2015 to denounce the free movement of persons. They are based in particular on a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 26 April – in response to a question asked by the Austrian judiciary on the interpretation of European texts – according to which such a measure, including any extensions, is permissible for a maximum total duration of six months.” The text also stipulates that the reintroduction of border controls can only be carried out by a Member State “when it faces a new serious threat affecting its public order or internal security, which differs from the one initially identified”.
Contacted by CheckNews, Laure Palun, director of Anafé, insists that “the main reason has always been the same since 2015, the terrorist threat and since 2019 the Covid”, putting the French state in “a situation of ‘illegality'”. The Council of State must decide in the coming weeks.