Paris (AFP)
Unnecessary quotas, declining access to "dangerous" care: aid associations for migrants and the excluded squandered Tuesday the government measures on immigration expected Wednesday.
"To install the term of quota in the middle of the public policy of immigration, it is the promise of polemics without ends and of a doubtful efficiency", warns Pierre Henry, general director of France Terre d'Asile.
On Tuesday morning, Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud confirmed that "quotas" or "quantified targets" of "professional" immigrants would be set every year by 2020 for "France to recruit" according to her work needs.
This measure should be announced with others Wednesday after an interdepartmental committee.
These quotas would only concern a small part of the immigration: 34,000 titles of "professional" out of 260,000 granted in total in 2018. Much less than the number granted to students, spouses or refugees.
"The debate is not very clear," worries Cyrille de Billy, Secretary General of the Cimade. "Does this not announce behind the opening of another debate to touch the family immigration or the right of asylum?", Abounds Pierre Henry, director general of France Land of asylum.
Perspective bristles associations. "France would then violate its international obligations, on the right of asylum and the family in particular," warn Mr. Henry and Billy.
On the other hand, notes the second, "it is very dangerous to determine in advance the level of economic activity", especially for "unskilled labor" and "unregulated and flexible economic sectors" .
The previous executives did not risk it. In 2008, under Nicolas Sarkozy, a commission charged by the government floor on immigration quotas had found them "ineffective", "unachievable or without interest".
- "No sense" -
Associations are also up against several other measures expected Wednesday, including restrictions on access to care.
The government thus provides for the introduction of a waiting period of three months before asylum seekers can access Universal Health Protection (PUMa, the basic social security), and the need for prior agreement of Secu for certain non-urgent acts in the framework of State Medical Aid (AME).
"The government is instrumentalizing health policy for migratory purposes," denounces Florent Guéguen, director of the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS), which brings together more than 800 associations and organizations fighting against exclusion.
"It's nonsense," says Henry, because "they are public health devices that protect us all."
"Asylum seekers arrive after months or years of wandering, trauma, and need care, some have respiratory diseases, scabies or tuberculosis, which need to be treated quickly," says Guéguen.
"This delay is unworthy, shocking, and very dangerous for public health," says Bruno Morel, general manager of Emmaus Solidarity, who says he is "extremely worried".
"In the end, the state will not save money, on the contrary: the more you heal late, the more expensive it is," adds Guéguen. As for those who need care quickly, they will go to emergencies, "which will be even more loaded when they are already in crisis," he regrets.
All these measures testify according to these associations of an "ideological vision" even of an "electoralist" instrumentalisation of the immigration.
"No repressive policy will change the migratory phenomenon, people will continue to arrive", notes Mr. de Billy, who points out that far from the fears of "invasion", the net migration remained, except in 2016 marked by a surge due to the Syrian conflict, "fairly stable in recent years".
"It is better to be pragmatic," he adds, "and to make it happen at best" by increasing the reception facilities, rather than reducing them and let emerge "areas of precariousness and unhelpfulness. rights".
© 2019 AFP