Melilla tragedy: Are we heading towards a new migration crisis?

Gérard-François Dumont is Professor at the Sorbonne, President of the journal

Population & Avenir

Geography of populations

FIGAROVOX.- Nearly 2,000 African migrants tried to enter the Spanish enclave of Melilla located in Morocco on Friday June 24.

At least twenty-three of them perished in the stampede.

How to explain the migratory pressure around Ceuta and Melilla?

Gerard-Francois DUMONT.

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It should be remembered that these two territories are the only European territories located in Africa.

When African migrants want to reach Europe, their priority is this area.

This is all the more the case that today the Strait of Gibraltar is highly protected by technical means developed by Spain with funding from the European Union, that the possibilities of passing through the Canary Islands, which exist always, are more dangerous, and that other routes, such as the central or eastern Mediterranean routes, are more difficult to cross at this time.

They therefore considered that it was the right time to try to enter Melilla from Moroccan territory.

They don't

Is a new migratory and political crisis emerging between Rabat and Madrid?

There is no migratory crisis, but, over the years for several decades, periodic migratory movements linked to the fact that on the side of the countries of departure, there are dissatisfied populations, who feel pushed back from their country because that they consider that economic developments are not favorable enough to enable them to live well.

Conversely, Europe is seen as attractive because it offers much better incomes, even when it comes to low wages.

If Africa has weathered the negative economic effects of Covid-19 quite well, it is because Africans working in Europe have been able to benefit from “whatever it takes” and send “rebates” to Africa, i.e. extremely large transfers of money,

Relations between Morocco and Spain have just been concluded recently with agreements according to which Spain recognizes for the first time the method used by Morocco to achieve the establishment of a system of autonomy for Western Sahara.

Gerard-Francois Dumont

The migratory phenomenon unfolds continuously, sometimes with periods like the one that has just taken place where other geopolitical elements come into play.

It should be remembered that there was a geopolitical crisis with very strong tensions between Morocco and Spain in April 2011. Spain had chosen to welcome via Algeria to treat him a Polisario official under a name loan, while we know that the Polisario, supported by Algeria, has been waging war on Morocco since 1975 to obtain the independence of Western Sahara, the former Spanish Sahara that Morocco has placed under its sovereignty since the withdrawal of Spain in 1975 during the "green march", one of the major events of Moroccan identity.

Since then, negotiations have taken place between Morocco and Spain in a context where, by nature, migration always has an outsourced dimension since it consists of going from one country to another.

For the country of arrival, part of the migratory journey is outsourced.

To say that the European Union partly outsources the management of migratory movements is a de facto, geographically obvious, and general phenomenon.

It would be easy to recall that the United States, even during the great waves of migration from Europe at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century, outsourced part of the management of migration to European shipping companies which therefore worked to block certain migrants.

However, relations between Morocco and Spain have just been concluded recently with agreements according to which Spain recognizes for the first time the method used by Morocco to achieve the establishment of a system of autonomy for Western Sahara. within Morocco.

For the first time, Spain supports Morocco's diplomatic position in the Western Sahara affair.

The diplomatic quarrel being over, Morocco ensured the protection of the borders of Melilla, preventing the numerous attempts to cross in recent days.

There was no blackmail either from Erdogan or from Belarus on the European Union, but a geopolitical balance of power in the context of which each country takes decisions according to what it deems useful to its interests.

Gerard-Francois Dumont

European executives and NGOs regularly denounce "blackmail of migrants".

Is it true ?

What is the interest of Morocco?

The word blackmail is always inappropriate.

We are in reality geopolitical balance of power between countries.

There was no blackmail either from Erdogan or from Belarus on the European Union, but a geopolitical balance of power in the context of which each country takes decisions according to what it deems useful to its interests.

Thus, Morocco has a migration policy that it develops according to its interests.

Morocco has been quite welcoming in recent years about South African migration settling in its country, which has nothing to do with transit migrants seeking to reach Europe, but because it wanted to reintegrate into the African Union from which he had been excluded, and have good relations with ECOWAS.

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Can we imagine a migratory wave coming to France?

Migrants never travel alone.

Networks of smugglers still organize their migratory journeys.

These networks are extremely flexible and flexible, and adapt to changes in the possibilities of migratory pathways.

It is not excluded that the smugglers readapt to this situation which they have just rediscovered in Melilla by using other migratory routes.