Britain’s Rwanda Bill has exposed the deep divisions in France between how the people and the political elite regard mass immigration. Asked if they would like France to adopt a Rwanda-style bill, 67 per cent of the French canvassed replied favourably to the idea. This figure is no surprise: for years, polls on the subject of border control have returned results that show two thirds to three-quarters of the French are worried by mass immigration and its consequences.
Emmanuel Macron had a different take on the Rwanda Bill. In a speech at the Sorbonne on Thursday, the president declared that he was opposed to ‘this model that some people want to put in place, which means that you go and look for a third country, for example in Africa, and send our immigrants there’. Such a model, said Macron, is ‘a betrayal of our values’.
Economic migrants and asylum seekers continue to arrive in Europe in vast numbers
Macron didn’t elaborate on what those ‘values’ might be.
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