YoThere’s no point in procrastinating. With the rape and murder of Philippine, a 19-year-old student, whose body was found on Saturday, September 21, in the Bois de Boulogne, the news has rarely served the purposes of an Interior Minister looking for a justification for a new twist. of the screw of immigration.
If Taha O., the 22-year-old undocumented Moroccan arrested three days later in Geneva, Switzerland, is indeed the perpetrator, it is undeniable that this femicide could have been prevented. On condition that the young man, already convicted of rape, could have remained detained until Morocco issued the consular pass (LPC) allowing his expulsion. Hence the apparently logical conclusion of advocating the extension of the period of detention of foreigners awaiting deportation to the border, as the friends of Bruno Retailleau’s Les Républicains wished.
In fact, if regulating or legislating under the influence of the – understandable – anger of public opinion is not good policy, doing nothing seems unbearable. We still have to act rationally and effectively. For thirty years, governments of the right and the left have continued to extend the time during which a foreigner can be detained pending the organization of his expulsion: set at ten days by the Pasqua law of 1993, this duration of detention increased to twelve days. in 1998 with the Chevènement law, then to thirty-two with the Sarkozy law of 2003, to forty-five days with the Besson law, in 2011, then to ninety days with the Columbus law of 2018.
A possible Retailleau law, which aligns this duration with those in force in several European countries, which are much longer, would undoubtedly appease part of public opinion. But nothing says that this prevents a similar drama from being repeated. Nor would it improve the ridiculous rate (around 10%) of execution of deportations at the border that fuels the extreme right vote.
In the face of emotion and anger, nothing is worse than offering false answers that feed the resentment machine. Like the idea that restricting the social rights of foreigners will reduce the flow of arrivals.
However, there are real levers for change. It is about clearly designating them and putting yourself in a position to activate them. This has often been said, but in vain: instead of issuing direct obligations to leave French territory (OQTF) addressed to people who are impossible to expel because they have, for example, potentially French children or are nationals of countries at war, we should focus on offenders and the chain of judicial and administrative decisions that lead to their expulsion.
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