Le Figaro
In the Alpes-Maritimes, not a week goes by without a new convoy of illegal migrants managing to reach French soil by crossing the Italian border via Menton.
The news regularly echoes this, pointing in particular to the lack of police personnel at the border.
Several deputies and local political figures also denounce this situation.
“Macron is authoritarian with the saucepans but lax with the colanders at the borders!”
Alexandra Masson was still annoyed on Tuesday on Twitter, the RN deputy for the 4th district of the Alpes-Maritimes.
All the undocumented immigrants who manage to reach the department do not disappear into the wild.
Many of them are caught and placed in the Nice administrative detention center (CRA) with a view to their expulsion.
Thus, 622 of them were locked up there during the year 2022, as revealed by the national annual report of Cimade (association for the support of migrants and refugees) published Thursday morning.
The document, just over 130 pages long, provides an inventory of the 29 CRAs spread across France and overseas.
Opened in 1986, that of Nice offers a capacity of 35 places.
Which is relatively little compared to the Marseille or Lyon CRAs which can accommodate 136 and 140 undocumented migrants respectively.
Located between the walls of the Auvare barracks (the central police station), the Nice center is freely accessible from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
It has 3 telephone booths but the Cimade report notes that
“none is in working order”
.
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Regarding the profile of individuals detained last year, the report notes an increase of 46% compared to 2021 (426 migrants).
Thus, 213 Tunisians were locked up in the Auvare CRA in 2022, 153 Algerians and 58 Moroccans.
These are the three most represented nationalities.
Romanian, Moldavian, Georgian, Albanian and Nigerian nationalities come next.
Only 20.7% of Nice CRA detainees are deported to their country of origin
Surprisingly, the average length of detention in Nice is well below the national average.
It was 16.9 days last year, six days less than elsewhere in the country and even half as much as in Marseille where it was 31 days.
And if it does not exceed 48 hours in 23.8% of cases, this period of confinement varies from 3 to 10 days for 35.7% of people.
However, it remains longer than 21 days in 33.5% of cases.
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In its annual report, Cimade also indicates that in the vast majority of cases (72.8%), those held end up being released and not handed over to the authorities of their country of origin.
This by decision of a judge, the prefecture or for health reasons.
In the end, only 20.7% of the detainees of the Nice CRA are removed from the national territory.
Two thirds of them were however subject to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF).
Once again, this rate is particularly low compared to the Marseille CRA (42% expulsion) and even compared to the national average (44%).
“
We know the difficulty.
France comes up against the refusal of countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco to give consular passes to their nationals whom we wish to expel.
»
Éric Ciotti, MP for the 1st constituency of the Alpes-Maritimes and President of the Republicans.
“It is largely linked to the fact that today it is people leaving prison who are placed in CRAs. It is a recent political will which has largely been consolidated since
the Lola affair
.
And this is good news, it prevents foreigners from being released into the wild after their sentence
, ”comments to Le
Figaro
the Maralpine deputy and president of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti.
“
Besides, we know the difficulty.
France comes up against the refusal of countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco to give
consular passes
to their nationals whom we wish to expel.
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Asked about the latest Cimade report, the parliamentarian considers that it is urgent to increase the places in the French CRAs.
"We now have some 1,200 places available, we should go to 3,000
," he insists.
This was also the subject of an amendment that he brought last October to the National Assembly as part of the finance bill.
A modification finally rejected.
Éric Ciotti also pleads for the creation of a new administrative detention center in Nice.
"We must be able to retain at least 100 people
," he said.
Point of view shared by the mayor of the city, Christian Estrosi.
On March 28, the city councilor had written to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, to inform him of his proposal to create a new
“deported and temporary”
CRA in Nice.
This in order to
“relieve our territory”
in the face of “
the migratory pressure which is increasing and the lack of places which are nevertheless essential to expel foreigners in an irregular situation
”, he had told him.
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