schema:articleBody
| - France's interior minister said Friday that refugees and foreigners convicted of public order offences or flagged as extremists would have their residency permits withdrawn and face expulsion. "For the first time, we've asked OFPRA (France's refugee agency) to withdraw asylum protection for anyone found to be going against the values of the republic," Gerald Darmanin told Le Figaro newspaper in an interview published Friday. The minister, a right-winger known for his tough line on crime and immigration, told AFP he would "focus on removing protection for those who have committed reprehensible acts linked to radicalisation or public order." The policy is the latest sign of the new focus on immigration, security and Islamism by the government of President Emmanuel Macron one year before presidential and parliamentary elections. Experts expect those issues to shape a contest in which far-right leader Marine Le Pen is Macron's closest rival, according to recent polls. Darmanin said over the past three months, 147 refugees had seen their asylum status withdrawn. "Our policy is clear: judging foreigners based on what they do, not who they are," he said. He told Le Figaro that 1,093 foreigners living illegally in France are currently on a watch list maintained by French security services of extremists suspected of being a terror threat. An additional 4,000 foreigners with residency status are also on the list, of which 25 percent are Algerian, 20 percent Moroccan, 15 percent Tunisian and 12 percent Russian, he said. Darmanin said he wanted residency rights withdrawn from foreigners on the extremist list, but he acknowledged the "major difficulty" of deporting people during the global coronavirus pandemic. Le Pen has long called for foreigners suspected of being security threats to be expelled. France deported 24,000 people in 2019, the highest level in at least a decade, according to interior ministry data. In the same period, it issued residency papers to around 275,000 foreigners for the first time and received 140,000 asylum requests. sha/adp/js/bp
|