French President Emmanuel Macron said this week that his country should deport radical migrants. The comments come as France banned demonstrations supporting Hamas and a radicalized migrant attacked and killed a schoolteacher.
The French president asked the Interior Ministry to engage in a “ruthless” examination of migrants who “carry hatred and terrorist ideologies” over the next two days.
Macron’s comments come at a sensitive time for France. The country saw weeks of rioting earlier this year after a police shooting of a migrant.
Furthermore, last week a Chechen migrant stabbed and killed a teacher and wounded two others. Mohamed Mogouchkov had been on the country’s suspected extremist watch list. He was ordered deported from France in 2014, but this was reversed on appeal.
Currently, the country’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that there are more than 20,000 such extremist files held by the French government, with at least around 500 suspected extremist foreigners.
The French government said that another 300 non-French radicals are presently in prison or under house arrest. France will seek to deport these migrants once their sentence is carried out.
Darmanin was set to “re-examine the administrative situation of all foreign nationals followed by the intelligence services under radical Islamism, by systematically initiating procedures of removal and expulsion” this week.
France: —Emmanuel Macron swiftly cracksdown on pro-Palestine migrants protesting in Paris
In contrast, when Algerian migrants rioted in July, burning several residential buildings and government properties, Macron was partying at a concert with his wife
Why the sudden crackdown pic.twitter.com/qO0E5BKCPv
— Klaus Arminius (@Klaus_Arminius) October 13, 2023
In the meantime, the country mobilized about 7,000 soldiers in case of further instability.
The president of the country’s National Assembly, Yael Braun-Pivet, said that “people who are not integrated, who are radicalized, who have a fierce hatred for the Republic” should be kept away from the country and that “we must blow up this protection.”
The French government received support from a prominent Muslim cleric for the proposed deportations this week.
In nearby Belgium, a shooting attack on Monday left two people dead. The alleged gunman recorded a video prior to the attack, in which he announced his allegiance to ISIS.
France has responded to the ongoing disturbances in the Middle East and possible tumult at home by raising its terrorist threat and banning marches supporting Hamas.
