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France uses money, not manacles, for deportation of immigrants

21/12/2006

African leaders are also reluctant to be seen by their electorates as cutting deportation deals with the former colonial master.

The French development minister, Brigitte Girardin, failed last week to persuade the Malian government to sign an agreement to make it easier for France to send back illegal immigrants. Senegal, Cameroon and Gabon have also refused to sign such "readmission accords," which facilitate the repatriation of illegals who try to conceal their national origin.

The French government, meanwhile, is making about ?20 million, or $26 million, available over the next two years for small grants to illegal immigrants who agree to return home with a business project and to legal migrants who invest in a project in their home countries.

But these funds are earmarked for people from 34 countries ? all of French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, plus Ethiopia, Morocco, Vanuatu, Haiti, and the Comoros Islands ? and amount to less than ?600,000 per country on average.

French officials, under pressure in an election year to allay public concerns about immigration, express frustration with the lack of responsiveness in African capitals to measures they see as more carrot than stick.

"We can no longer separate security and development," Girardin said in a telephone interview. "We cannot win the fight against illegal immigration with repressive means only."

But African representatives counter that Western governments are more interested in getting rid of immigrants than in helping countries develop, arguing that the latest initiatives fall short of a credible effort to boost living standards in the countries in question.

"The idea that you can keep poor Africans out of the developed countries is a lost cause," said Amina Sidibé, a member of the Paris-based Malian High Council, an umbrella body for about 300 Malian organizations in France.

"The initiatives are nice for the few people they help," Sidibé said, "but against the determination of young people who are ready to die, it is a drop in the ocean."

Thousands of Africans have come ashore in Europe this year after risking their lives in hazardous sea crossings; many others have drowned en route. More than 26,000 Africans reached Spain's Canary Islands from January to October this year, up from 4,715 in all of 2005, according to the European Union.

Last weekend two dozen illegal migrants drowned off the coast of Senegal after their vessel was wrecked on its way to the Canaries.

Other major destinations have been Malta, Lampedusa and Sicily, where a rusty fishing boat with 648 people who said they were from Egypt arrived this week.

Once they make it to the mainland, African migrants can move on with relative ease to other countries because of Europe's open borders.

Even if many of the migrants live in poverty in Europe, they do not want to go back. So various countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, have begun paying them to leave.

Under a policy implemented in France in November 2005, an illegal immigrant who agrees to return home may collect ?2,000 in cash. A couple is entitled to ?3,500, with an extra ?1,000 for each of the first three children and ?500 for every additional child.

But by November this year only 1,859 people had taken the offer; an estimated 500,000 other illegal immigrants preferred to stay.

As tensions over immigration build, several European governments have sought readmission agreements with African countries.

In theory, illegal immigrants can be repatriated without such accords ? no country can refuse to take one of their nationals back, according to Girardin's office ? but in practice the task is complicated by the fact that illegal immigrants have an incentive to hide their nationality to avoid deportation.

Readmission accords ease the burden of proof of nationality ? accepting, for instance, local dialects as conclusive evidence.

France has such accords with 44 countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, but none in Africa.

Mali, a former colony, is a test case for France. In 2004, the government started a pilot program for the 75,000 illegal Malian immigrants estimated to be living in France. Girardin's office made ?2.6 million available to finance micro grants for illegal immigrants who were prepared to return home with business projects. In return, Mali exchanged a letter of understanding with France on facilitating the deportation process ".