POLL: French minister pledges to deport illegal migrants who have 'broken in' - should Britain do the same? YOUR VERDICT
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau
Reuters
France's interior minister has said the new government is open to toughening immigration laws.
It comes as the government is under pressure from the far-right National Rally (RN) after the arrest of a Moroccan man suspected of murdering a 19-year-old woman in Paris.
Marine Le Pen's RN party has jumped on the murder of the young student, identified by authorities only by her first name, Philippine, as vindication of its calls for tougher immigration and crime laws.
Under pressure from the RN, which holds major political sway over Prime Minister Michel Barnier's newly installed government, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said that he would look into changing the law to prevent such a situation from happening again.
Retailleau, a long-time immigration hawk, said in a statement: "Faced with such a tragedy, preceded by many others, we cannot just condemn it or be outraged. It's up to us, public officials, to...update our legislation, to protect the French."
Commenting on the subject, political commentator Matt Goodwin said: "This should not be controversial. We should do the same - not give them amnesty."
Official Eurostat data shows France deports more non-EU citizens than any other European Union nation. However, it issues so many expulsion orders, two to five times more than Germany in each quarter over the past two years, that its ratio of enforced expulsion orders is low.
In the first quarter of 2024, France ordered the expulsion of 34,190 non-EU citizens, or nearly a third of all expulsions ordered across the EU, but only deported 4,205 people.
In the exclusive poll for GB News membership readers, an overwhelming majority (100 per cent) of the 553 voters thought Britain should ape France with their plan to deport illegal migrants who have 'broken in'.
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