The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, must start a real diplomatic marathon from this Friday, until Sunday, on immigration and security issues.
In 72 hours, he must rally Italy, Tunisia and Algeria, via Malta.
Terrorist news of course dictates these stages.
Wasn't the Tunisian terrorist who struck in Nice on October 29th freshly arrived via the Italian island of Lampedusa?
Brahim Aouissaoui went up the peninsula, going through all the controls supposed to be operated.
Italy had certainly ordered him to leave the country, but no coercive measures had been taken.
A real security fiasco, on both sides of Piedmont for that matter.
Read also:
Is the European Union about to adopt a common immigration policy?
The purpose of the French minister's visit will be to relaunch cooperation with the Italians in the fight against terrorism and illegal immigration.
Announced last August by the host of Beauvau, the Franco-Italian border surveillance brigade project had fallen behind schedule with the health crisis.
Gérald Darmanin hopes to see this kind of integrated staff emerge in a concrete way to facilitate the exchange of information and joint actions of the services.
Statistical explosion
More delicate will be the trip to Tunis, from Friday noon.
There, during meetings planned with his counterpart from the Interior but also with the head of government, Gérald Darmanin must discuss migratory flows and anti-terrorist cooperation.
Tunisian illegal migrants represent 40% of the migratory flow currently arriving on the Italian coast.
Several hundred illegal immigrants per week, during peak arrivals.
Read also:
The flow of illegal Tunisians explodes
The LR deputy for the Alpes-Maritimes, Éric Ciotti, was the first to warn about this statistical explosion, last August.
And the fears of seeing a motivated terrorist take advantage of this gaping loophole were verified with the drama of Nice.
Another thorny subject: Gérald Darmanin must bring up the case of the foreign Islamists on file that France would like to expel to their country of origin, including many Tunisians, Algerians and Moroccans.
The first cop in France ordered the expulsion of 231 foreigners registered in the FSPRT (File of alerts for the prevention of terrorist radicalization).
No less than 70% of individuals deemed dangerous come from Maghreb countries and a few are Russians, originating from Chechnya.
"Twenty-six of the 231 have already been expelled," said
a close friend of the minister.
But there are all the others.
Read also:
Why is it so difficult to expel radicalized foreigners?
"The source countries require, for example, PCR tests to see if the interested parties do not have the Covid"
, confides a connoisseur of the file.
Certainly, some of the individuals listed are positive for the virus, but other arguments are put forward to thwart the Paris projects.
“The source country must recognize its national before taking it back, and consular passes are issued in small quantities even for profiles without history. So imagine for a terrorist! ”
, says an expert.
In some cases, the authorities of the country of origin would say, according to him, more or less this speech:
"Your suspect has been in France for many years, but he has become radicalized in your area and we have no reason for the resume. "
How to convince?
It will be the same difficulties in Algiers, the last stage of the ministerial visit.
In this country, the borders are completely closed because of the measures against the coronavirus.
