Date: Saturday, 01 September 2018
All 141 migrants who arrived in Malta aboard the MV Aquarius on August 15 will eventually be relocated to France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain under an ad-hoc agreement.
The migrants who left for Paris were assisted by the UN's International Organisation for Migration, Maltese authorities, and French officials.
They had been identified by French asylum officials as persons in need of protection, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said in a statement. Most of the 59 were from Eritrea and Sudan.
"This relocation effort represents a prime example of how European solidarity can achieve results to rapidly resolve cases requiring timely solutions to address humanitarian urgencies," French Deputy Ambassador Vanessa Salas Pouget said before the migrants departed on Thursday.
The Maltese government said it had made a "concession" allowing the vessel to enter its ports despite having no legal obligation to do so.
The Aquarius, a rescue ship operated by charity SOS Mediterranee with assistance from Doctors without Borders (MSF), was stranded halfway between Malta and Italy as both countries blocked its arrival.
It was the second time the ship was left without a port: in June it was forced to travel more than 1000km to the Spanish port of Valencia after a week stranded at sea.
Collomb warned that ad-hoc solutions to stalemates over migrants and refugees rescued at sea "are not satisfactory: A long-term solution is needed at the European level."
Two weeks after landing in Malta, the 59 refugees arrived Thursday at Roissy airport (Paris region) by charter and immediately joined reception centers in French regions. This operation is the fifth since June, when the humanitarian ship Aquarius had wandered a week in the Mediterranean after the refusal of Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to let him dock. A dozen countries have since accepted to divide a portion of migrants arriving in Mediterranean ports, including 260 in France.
But these are case-by-case agreements and the struggle continues in Europe.
To unblock the situation, Paris argues for a "permanent European mechanism" distribution. "The idea is not to stay at eleven or twelve but to have more and more countries participating," said the French presidency last week.
Thursday's operation "illustrates this mechanism", consisting of "a system of care for refugees on arrival in the ports of southern Europe", explains Pascal Brice, the Director General of Ofpra ( French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons).
In this approach, Paris intends to play a leading role, both in the negotiations and the implementation of distribution agreements, being the first to implement the commitments made - the refugees of Aquarius arrived in France two weeks after landing in Malta.
While Italy complains bitterly of being, during the 2015-2016 migratory crisis, left alone in the face of arrivals by its European neighbors and in particular by Paris, it is necessary to show that the lessons of the past have been learned. .
- "Contradiction" -
The mechanism defended by France stems from the agreement it pushed to the European summit of 28 June, around the principle of "controlled centers" where a distinction would be made "quickly" between irregular migrants on the one hand, and applicants for to be allocated to the European Union (EU) on a voluntary basis ".
"People who do not have the right to stay must be reappointed," adds Brice, stressing the need to "help the countries of arrival" in this task.
Because expelling is complicated. Not doing so feeds populist speeches. This delicate part of the rejected "is also the reason why France refuses to accept itself landings," said Pierre Henry, the boss of the association France land of asylum.
French President Emmanuel Macron said at the end of June: "France will not open centers of this type because it is not a country of first entry". The law of the sea provides that ships must land in the "nearest safe harbor", which puts Spain, Greece and Italy in the front line.
Rome defended on Thursday with its partners the idea of a rotation of the European ports of reception of the migrants rescued within the framework of the mission Sophia.
But for Mr. Henry, the French position seems difficult tenable: "France must lead by example, if it does not we are in a dead end and let Salvini dictate the case to the whole of Europe".
There is a "contradiction", Jerome Fourquet, of the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop), emphasizes that "we are teaching Salvini but we are glad that geography has placed the French coast second line ".
The subject is dividing as the 2019 European elections approach.
"French opinion is still opposed to reception," said Mr. Fourquet: mid-August, only 41% of people surveyed by Ifop were in favor of the idea of accepting Aquarius.
