Referring to Italy, Darmanin accuses the RN of being on the side of those “who attack France” – RT in French

Tense episode in the National Assembly. Responding to an elected member of the National Rally, the Minister of the Interior questioned the patriotism of the RN, accusing it of siding with the Italian executive in the Ocean Viking affair.

The elected National Rally Mathilde Paris questioned this November 22 the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin during a session of questions to the government at the National Assembly, on the thorny affair of the migrants from the Ocean Viking.

“In the 8 p.m. news you declared, Minister, that the 234 migrants, and I quote, “will not be able to leave the administrative center” […] almost all of these migrants have been released”, she denounced, recalling that a hundred people who had been refused entry into the territory had been able to leave by court order.

In response, the minister referred to a permission to dock dictated not by the executive itself but by “humanity”, before accusing the RN of siding with the Italian leaders, who would have flouted the “right international” by refusing to disembark these migrants.

He also accused the National Rally of preferring to attack “French police officers” and “French litigants who considered that these people should be accommodated, and in particular 44 children”.

The RN accused of not being “patriotic”

“Indeed, madam, you are not always patriotic when you have to ally yourself with the enemies of those who are attacking France at the moment,” he dismissed. A phrase that is complex to say the least, which could lead one to believe, wrongly, that the minister has qualified Italy as an enemy.

“We respected international law, we welcomed these boats, then the Minister of the Interior and his services respect the rule of law and the law in general […] We must change the law and this is precisely what we are going to do in the immigration law [que le gouvernement prévoit de présenter en janvier 2023]“, he further justified.

The Minister finally declared that he wanted to draw the “conclusions” of this affair, which raised lively controversy 11 days after the arrival of the ship chartered by SOS Méditerranée in Toulon with 230 migrants on board, initially locked up in an “area of international waiting. The previous week, the Minister of the Interior had mentioned the expulsion of some forty of these migrants, but in fact, most were released by court order. The Minister of the Interior also mentioned on the same November 22 a return by plane to Mali of two migrants, without giving further details.