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French mayors offer to take in Afghan refugees as 200 evacuated from Kabul overnight

France said on Wednesday it had evacuated almost 200 Afghan nationals from Kabul overnight as it steps up airlifts out of the Afghan capital following the Taliban takeover.

Published: 18 August 2021 13:03 CEST
French mayors offer to take in Afghan refugees as 200 evacuated from Kabul overnight
People wait to board French military transport at Kabul airport. Photo: STR/AFP

The French military is taking people out of Kabul on military planes to Abu Dhabi, from where they are to be flown on passenger aircraft to Paris. A first contingent of 41 French and foreign nationals arrived in France on Monday.

Amid the chaos of the fall of Kabul, French embassy staff moved to the airport where they continues to process visas for Afghans under threat from the Taliban.

And on Tuesday, dozens of mayors from across France offered to welcome refugees, saying “we have the capacity to welcome with dignity”.

“Nearly 200 Afghans who worked for France or who are under threat have just been evacuated from Kabul, as well as French and foreign nationals,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a tweet on Wednesday, adding that the operations would continue.

The foreign ministry said 216 people were on board the flight, including 25 French, 184 Afghans “from civil society in need of protection” as well as seven other foreign nationals.

It said that this operation meant that most people – both of French and Afghan nationality – who had taken refuge at the French embassy in Kabul, had now been evacuated. The French embassy is now working out of the airport.

The mayor of Besançon, Anne Vignot of the Green party, wrote: “I respond to France’s duty of humanity and announce that my city of Besançon is ready to welcome Afghans who seek refuge in France. We have the capacity to welcome with dignity.”

The Green mayor of Strasbourg, Jeanne Barseghian, added that her city “in its long tradition as a hospitable city, is ready to welcome Afghans who seek refuge in France” while the Socialist Olivier Bianchi added: “Clermont-Ferrand will be at the meeting place to welcome those who are threatened in their freedom. We must live up to our values.”

Macron in a speech on Monday night said France was ready to help activists, artists and journalists who risk being targeted because of their work.

“We will help them as it is the honour of France to be side-by-side with those who share our values,” he said. Addressing fears that the Taliban will restrict the rights of women, he added: “Afghan women have the right to live in freedom and dignity.”

“We will say very clearly to those who opt for war, obscurantism and blind violence that they have chosen isolation,” he said.

But he stirred controversy with other parts of his speech, which called on EU leaders to work together on a response that was “robust, coordinated and united” to prevent irregular migration by harmonising criteria and showing European solidarity.

“We must anticipate and protect ourselves against significant irregular migratory flows that would endanger the migrants and risk encouraging trafficking of all kinds,” he said.

France in July stopped deporting people to Afghanistan because of the security situation.

Member comments

  1. I sincerely hope this government and others are able to separate out the terrorists from among the legitimate refugees. We don’t seem to even be trying to do this here in the USA.

  2. I find it strange that these Mayors are eager to house Afghan refugees yet seem to show no interest whatsoever in the existing thousands of migrants living rough in the Pas-de-Calais who risk death crossing the Channel to you know where.

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POLITICS

Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Violent unrest has disrupted daily life on the French Pacific island of New Caledonia - leaving several dead and prompting president Emmanuel Macron to declare a state of emergency. Here's a look at what’s happening, why, and why it matters so much to France.

Published: 15 May 2024 14:45 CEST
Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Two people have been killed and hundreds more injured, shops were looted and public buildings torched during a second night of rioting in New Caledonia – Nouvelle-Calédonie, in French – as anger over planned constitutional reforms boiled over.

On Wednesday, president Emmanuel Macron declared a state of emergency as the violence continued, with at least one police officer seriously injured.

What began as pro-independence demonstrations have spiralled into three days of the worst violence seen on the French Pacific archipelago since the 1980s. 

Police have arrested more than 130 people since the riots broke out Monday night, with dozens placed in detention to face court hearings, the commission said.

A curfew has been put in place, and armed security forces are patrolling the streets of the capital Noumea.

So, New Caledonia is a French colony?

New Caledonia is, officially, a collectivité d’Outre mer (overseas collective). It’s not one of the five départements d’Outre mer – French Guiana in South America, Martinique and Gaudeloupe in the Caribbean and Réunion and Mayotte in the Indian Ocean – which are officially part of France.

As a collectivité, New Caledonia has special status that was negotiated in 1988 that gives it increasing autonomy over time and more say over its own affairs that the French overseas départements.

Home to about 269,000 people, the archipelago was a penal colony in the 19th century. Today its economy is based mainly on agriculture and vast nickel resources.

What has prompted the riots?

This is about voting rights.

Pro-independence groups believe that constitutional reforms that would give the vote to anyone who has lived on the island for 10 years would dilute the vote held by the indigenous Kanak people – who make up about 41 percent of the population, and the majority of whom favour independence.

New Caledonia’s voter lists have not been updated since 1998 when the Noumea Accord was signed, depriving island residents who arrived from mainland France or elsewhere since of a vote in provincial polls, enlarging the size of the voting population.

Proponents of the reform say that it just updates voting rolls to include long-time residents, opponents believe that it’s an attempt to gerrymander any future votes on independence for the islands.

The Noumea Accord – what’s that?

It was an agreement, signed in 1998, in which France said it would grant increased political power to New Caledonia and its original population, the Kanaks, over a 20-year transition period. 

It was signed on May 5th 1998 by Lionel Jospin, and approved in a referendum in New Caledonia on November 8th, with 72 percent voting in favour.

The landmark deal has led to three referendums. In 2018, 57 percent voted to remain closely linked to France; in October 2020, the vote decreased to 53 percent. In a third referendum in 2021, the people voted against full sovereignty with another narrow margin.

And that’s what the reforms are about?

Yes. The reforms, which have been voted through by MPs in France, but must still be approved by a joint sitting of both houses of the French parliament, would grant the right to vote to anyone who has lived on the island for 10 years or more. 

President Emmanuel Macron has said that lawmakers will vote to definitively adopt the constitutional change by the end of June, unless New Caledonia’s political parties agree on a new text that, “takes into account the progress made and everyone’s aspirations”.

Autonomy has its limits.

How serious is the unrest?

French President Emmanuel Macron urged calm in a letter to the territory’s representatives, calling on them to “unambiguously condemn” the “disgraceful and unacceptable” violence.

New Caledonia pro-independence leader, Daniel Goa, asked people to “go home”, and condemned the looting.

But “the unrest of the last 24 hours reveals the determination of our young people to no longer let France take control of them,” he added.

This isn’t the first time there’s been unrest on the island, is it?

There has been a long history of ethnic tensions on New Caledonia, starting in 1878 when a Kanak insurgency over the rights of Kanaks in the mining industry left 200 Europeans and 600 rebels dead. Some 1,500 Kanaks were sent into exile.

Clashes between Kanaks and Caldoches in the 1980s culminated in a bloody attack and hostage-taking by Kanak separatists in 1988, when six police officers and 19 militants were killed on the island of Ouvea.

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