French MPs turned away from a refugee camp in Syria
Photo taken in Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, home to suspected relatives of Islamic State (IS) fighters, in northeastern Syria's Hasakeh governorate, March 3, 2021. AFP - DELIL SOULEIMAN
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2 min
Misunderstanding of a handful of French parliamentarians: a delegation went to Syria last week to visit refugee camps and meet certain jihadists and their families, who are being held there in very difficult conditions.
However, access was denied to them, unlike representatives of other countries.
Now back on French territory, they accuse Paris of having exerted pressure to prevent them from entering these camps.
They are waiting for a response from the government.
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A trip for nothing ... or almost ... Arriving at the northern border of Syria to enter Rojava, this enclave controlled by the Kurdish authorities, the delegation of parliamentarians did not imagine meeting such resistance.
MEPs Mounir Satouri and Sylvie Guillaume as well as deputies Frédérique Dumas and Hubert Julien-Laferrière are denied access to the camps, despite several positive exchanges made upstream of the mission.
Their various interlocutors, members of the Kurdish administration, allegedly made use of the pretext of not being able to guarantee the security of the members of the delegation, but also showed themselves to be confused on several occasions.
The Belgian, Spanish and German delegations had, however, been able to enter these camps previously.
It would have been made clear to elected officials on the spot that France was too important a partner geostrategically to allow them to continue their mission.
According to them, the Quai d'Orsay would therefore have put pressure on the Kurdish authorities to prevent them from meeting in particular a woman detained with whom they had an appointment.
As a reminder, Paris applies a return policy on a case-by-case basis for French children detained in these camps and that adults must be judged on the spot ...
The repressed deputies are now awaiting a specific response from the government on the subject.
Asked at the end of the Council of Ministers, the spokesperson Gabriel Attal assured that he would speak soon.
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