Eight days after the reception of the Ocean Viking in Toulon, in the south of France, the management by Paris of the survivors is becoming more and more complicated between releases by the courts and untraceable unaccompanied minors.
A week after the reception of 234 migrants in a holiday center in the Var transformed into an “area waiting »the government’s strategy seems to be shattered. Of the people locked up in this center, 123 adults are the subject of refusal to enter the territory after being questioned by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA).
66 of them received a favorable opinion. The latter will therefore have refugee status and under agreements with the European Union, they will be relocated to Germany, Finland or Portugal. Countries that had volunteered.
But where the situation gets worse is for 108 of the survivors who were awaiting a court decision. The judge of freedoms and detention of Toulon had decided to relinquish their case, not having had time to process them within the time limit of 24 hours. The migrants were therefore, in theory, free, but the Toulon prosecutor’s office appealed this decision, forcing them to remain in the waiting area. The Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal finally validated their release.
At the end of the afternoon on Friday, there were only 12 migrants still on the site. A situation ” which changes from minute to minute “, according to the Ministry of the Interior. And to this vagueness are added ” persons released but returned voluntarily ” on the site ” to benefit of the accommodation, recognized, disillusioned, the representative of the ministry.
Concerning unaccompanied minors who were housed in reception facilities made available by the department, 26 of them left their emergency accommodation centre.
► Read also : The long journey that awaits those disembarked from the “Ocean Viking”
” Chaos »
It is therefore difficult to see clearly the future of these survivors. A situation which is not surprising, according to the ecologist deputy, Hubert Julien Laferrière, who had visited the exiles on Sunday November 13. He denounces today the approximations of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin: ” A minister cannot come forward like that when it is in the domain of justice. He knows very well that all decisions to return to the border, of course, are subject to appeal and the appeals have taken place. It is up to the court to say whether there is an expulsion or not. And to the extent that in this waiting area, the interviews have been totally botched, well, there may not be any deportation at all “.
” We are still talking about people who have been through hell and who have the full right, if not to asylum, at least to ask for it. ‘Cause that’s what we’re talking about “, he concludes.
This situation denounced by the opposition is an opportunity for the National Rally to denounce once again the reception of this ship on French territory. ” In France, everyone comes in, but no one goes out “, retorts the deputy RN of the Var, Laure Lavalette.
We could take stock today of this reception of the Ocean Viking, it is all the same once again a migratory chaos.
Laure Lavalette, RN deputy for Var
► To listen too : Migrants who survived the Ocean Viking: “Appeasement for them, but also concern”