These days many cracks are going through the government warehouse of President Emmanuel Macron. But one thing is especially clear: Two of the most exposed women on Macron's side want to grant US whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum in France. It is Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet and Natalie Loiseau, the leading candidate of the French ruling party La République en Marche (LREM) in the recent European elections. In their Wednesday issue, the Paris newspaper "Le Monde" also lays down: "France has to give Edward Snowden asylum," headlines "Le Monde".
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Snowden himself, whose right of residence in Russia currently only applies until 2020, then renewed his request for asylum in France, which he had already made in 2013, at that time still under President François Hollande. "Of course I would be pleased if Macron invites an invitation," he said on Monday in an interview with the radio station France Inter.
And already France has a new Snowden debate that the country should actually be proud of. As early as 1793, French revolutionaries wrote an automatic right of asylum into their constitution, which could be given to anyone "who is banished because of the freedom of his country". This asylum of constitutional law also found its way into the French post-war constitutions in 1946 and 1958 and goes beyond the right of asylum as enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, as in the case of Snowden: it grants asylum also for Freedom fighters who are outside their own country. Just for one like Snowden, who is starving in Moscow.
Charles Platiau / REUTERS
Justice Minister Belloubet: If it was up to her, Snowden would get asylum in France
"Snowden is entitled to asylum in France," wrote the renowned French historian and constitutional expert Patrick Weil during the first Snowden debate in France in 2014. At that time, the Parisian magazine "Express" had a well-publicized petition by 50 intellectuals for Snowden's Asylum started in France, but Hollande's government refused.
Macron will not get rid of the topic so quickly
"The political context is cheaper for Snowden today than five years ago," France now believes French public broadcaster. However, employees of President Macron quickly said that Belloubet's and Loiseau's statements for Snowden were private expressions of opinion. It sounded as if Macron had nothing to do with the Snowden case either. But the president will not be rid of the topic that fast.
"France sees an honor in defending the right to asylum and has gone to the trouble of writing it into its constitution, which is rarely exercised, but in the case of Edward Snowden, this is a unique opportunity," said Asylex expert Catherine Teitgen-Colly, Professor of Law at the University of Paris I, told France 24. The French Minister of Justice, however, apparently thinks that she merely expresses her personal opinion on the Snowden case and does not make a formal invitation.
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Their position is part of a larger dispute over asylum law in France. "France is about to become the country with the most asylum inquiries in Europe," said Macron in late August in a keynote speech. He exaggerated. From 100,000 in 2017, the number of asylum seekers in France is expected to rise to more than 130,000 this year. In Germany, however, there were 2018 applicants in 2018, and by July alone more than 100,000 applications had been registered this year.
Macon believes that the number of applications in France is so high "because we are a poorly organized country". This is a poorly concealed order to his ministers to do everything they can to reduce the number of applicants. "The rising number of asylum seekers is fuel for Marine Le Pen," admits a senior official at the Paris Ministry of Interior opposite "Le Monde". And that's the point: Macron does not want to leave the right-wing extremist Marine Le Pen, his biggest domestic political rival, with the asylum issue. He sometimes sounds almost as reactionary as she does to the subject.
An asylum seeker Snowden could Macron very convenient
But that is exactly what Belloubet is counting on. Such a famous asylum-seeker like Snowden could be very convenient for a president who wants to intensify the general handling of asylum seekers, without attracting his left-liberal voters. With the US whistleblower in France, Macron could market the old, revolutionary French asylum ethos and in fact do the opposite.
So far, diplomatic reasons kept the EU countries, including Germany, from endangering Snowden asylum. Too big is the concern about US punitive action. But if anyone escapes them today, then perhaps Macron, who proved only at the recent G7 summit that he can also make unorthodox arrangements with US President Donald Trump.
