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IMMIGRATION

French researcher acquitted of aiding migrants

A French court on Friday acquitted a man for helping migrants sneak into the country from Italy as immigration issues play a major role ahead of this year's elections.

French researcher acquitted of aiding migrants
Pierre-Alain Mannoni arrives at the Nice Courthouse in November. Photo: Yann Coatsaliou/AFP
“In France today we have the right to save people in distress,” said researcher Pierre-Alain Mannoni, who had faced a six-month suspended jail sentence for aiding Eritrean migrants who came into France from Italy.
   
The prosecutor said during the trial in November in the southern city of Nice that people had a “duty” to help people, “but not help (illegal immigrants) to stay and circulate” in the country.
   
The judge ruled Friday that the 45-year-old researcher at French national research centre CNRS had helped three young Eritrean women to “protect their dignity”.
   
A law in effect since 2012 grants immunity to people smugglers who are not paid and if the lives of their charges are considered in peril.
   
“You can help people,” Mannoni said after the ruling. “I recommend it, it does a lot of good!”
 
He is one of three people in the area to appear in court recently for illegally assisting migrants travelling up through Europe after crossing the Mediterranean in rickety boats.
   
Their cases have pitched the spirit of solidarity against the letter of the law at a time when border controls and migration have become hot political issues.
   
The right-wing president of the Riviera region, Christian Estrosi, has repeatedly criticised activists who help migrants.
   
He said on Facebook that Friday's ruling was “an insult to the work of the security forces who put their life in danger to protect ours.”
   
Estrosi added that some jihadists had been able to enter France after passing themselves off as migrants.
   
Mannoni was arrested at a toll booth near the southern town of Menton in October with the three Eritreans including a minor that he wanted to lodge. Another activist, farmer Cedric Herrou, appeared in the Nice court on Wednesday facing an eight-month suspended prison term for moving some 50 Eritreans into a disused holiday village owned by the state.
   
Security forces emptied the camp after three days.
 
In addition to the suspended sentence, public prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre called for Herrou's vehicle to be confiscated and for his driving licence to be restricted to driving only for professional use.
   
Herrou, 37, has become something of a folk hero around the French-Italian border for driving migrants across the frontier, under the noses of the French police, and then putting them up. The verdict in his case is expected on February 10.
 
In early December an appeals court in Aix-en-Provence upheld a fine of 1,500 euros ($1,580) against a 73-year-old retired professor for helping two Eritreans avoid a police check.
   
The controversy comes less than four months ahead of the first round of France's presidential elections.
   
The Socialist government came under harsh criticism for allowing the infamous “Jungle” migrant camp to develop near the northern port of Calais, which the authorities finally closed in October.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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