France insisted yesterday it would keep turning back North African migrants trying to enter from Italy despite valid paperwork after the European Commission backed the controversial move’s legality.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant said France wanted to avoid a rift with Italy after it stopped trains crossing the border, but warned Tunisian migrants would be sent back if they could not show they had enough funds to stay.
Southern Europe has been confronted by a wave of North African migrants in recent months following unrest in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, and European Union members are divided over how to deal with the new arrivals.
Italy has begun handing out temporary residence cards to around 20,000 newly arrived Tunisians and Paris fears they will take advantage of this reprieve to move on across the un-policed French border and settle down.
France has close ties to Tunisia, one of its former North African colonies, and many would-be migrants have friends and relatives in French cities.
On Sunday, in response to a protest by activists who support the Tunisians, French officials blocked all trains from Italy for the day – drawing a sharp response from Rome, which alleged EU law was broken.
But Mr Gueant insisted Paris had respected “in letter and spirit” the Schengen Agreement, the treaty under which core EU members agreed to allow residents to travel without passports within their borders. However, as the first country of arrival, Italy was responsible for managing the migrants, who must show they have the financial resources to stay in the second country.
In the absence of such resources, “we will return these people to Italy”, said Mr Gueant.
The minister defended the decision to block trains from the border town of Ventimiglia, citing the risk of public disorder.
“A public order problem was possible and the simplest way of dealing with it was to stop the train coming in,” he explained.
The Schengen Agreement provides for countries to implement identity checks temporarily at the border if there is a threat to public order or national security.
Asked by AFP about tensions between the two countries, Mr Gueant said: “France does not want that at all.”