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POLITICS

Blame UK for end to onward freedom of movement, Barnier tells Brits in France

Michel Barnier, the man tasked with representing the EU in Brexit negotiations, told The Local that the British government's hardline stance was to blame for stripping its citizens of the right to move freely in Europe.

Michel Barnier, the Frenchman behind the EU's Brexit negotiation, says that the UK is to blame for a lack of free movement.
Michel Barnier, the Frenchman behind the EU's Brexit negotiation, says that the UK is to blame for a lack of free movement. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

Cartes de séjour, the 90-day rule and increased police checks at the border – the British government is to blame for all of these, according to the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier. 

The 70-year-old who lost out in the race to be the presidential candidate for France’s centre-right party said he realised very quickly that freedom of movement for British citizens within the EU was never a real possibility. 

“The British imposed a hard line from the beginning of the negotiations – a total exit from all European institutions. It was not obliged to do this. They wanted to exit from everything definitively: the single market with the liberty to move freely, the customs union and the European Union,” he told The Local. 

“There are two other countries, Iceland and Norway, who are in the single market without being in the European Union. The door was open to these options,” said Barnier.  

Britons who took advantage of freedom of movement to move to France and other EU countries have effectively been “landlocked” by Brexit. They can move home, albeit with obstacles if they have an EU partner, but they cannot move freely to another EU country.

Reciprocity was key in ensuring a smooth transition to the post-Brexit landscape, according to Barnier. The EU offered residency and social rights for Brits living in Europe before December 31st 2020 – and the UK did the same for Europeans. 

But the veteran politician remembers that up until the very end of the negotiation process, he was pushing for greater freedom of movement. 

“I proposed freedom of movement for artists in the negotiations. This is something I spoke about with Elton John. He asked me what we could do. I told him that I had proposed freedom of movement but that the British didn’t want it,” he said. 

“The door is still open for closer relationship with the British in the coming years – I don’t know until when,” said Barnier adding that any change would depend on the “will of the British”.

Barnier hoped to win the primary of France’s traditional conservative party to stand as The Republicans’ candidate at next year’s presidential election. He narrowly missed out to Valérie Pécresse. If she becomes the next leader of France, Barnier could feasibly end up serving as a senior minister.

In this scenario, immigrations to France for citizens from non-EU countries would become harder. 

“It will be much less easy because we will hold a referendum next September, which would allow parliament to fix migration quotas every year – like in Canada – for students, family reunification and economic migrants,” said Barnier, seemingly confident of a victory for Pécresse. 

“It will not be zero migration, because that is just a slogan, but there will be quotas.”

Member comments

  1. Can’t blame M Barnier. The UK government mishandled this from day one, with grandstanding, patronising comments and leaks to the press. Naturally the EU decided not to make it easy.
    The citizens of the UK have been punished by an incompetent government.

  2. Perhaps Barnier could explain why for non-resident Brits , Schengen is a single territory and for resident Brits it’s 26 different countries.

    1. This is incorrect. Schengen is only a territory from a tourist travel perspective as this is a tourist visa non EU citizens can apply for. It confers no rights of residency nor implies any freedom to settle. If you are visiting any Schengen country to do business, study or with the intention of immigrating then you need a business visa or one of the very many other types of visa and permit that are available.

      The only one I know of that allows movement between EU countries is the European Blue Card where, after 18 months working for the first company you got the visa for, you can transfer this to another employer in another participating EU country.

    2. As a brit resident in Germany, the Schengen zone feels very much like a single territory.

      If i go to france and stay 100 days then come home no one will ever know or really care

      The lack of passport checks means anyone could choose to overstay the 90 day rule without getting caught

      The only difference is i would lack the right to live or work there

      For British tourists the visa gives you the ability to visit with all the same rights i would have in france, but you would have only those same rights in Germany also. Not the right to live and work in Germany that i have

      Schengen is a specialist concept. When you cross borders without passport checks its easy to feel like its a single territory when its really a group if territories willing to work closely together for mutual benefit without prejudice, bias, or political point scoring.

      If we had dealt with the eu negotiating team like that, we would all have much greater freedoms, and more rights throughout the entire EU, and EEA

  3. Please don’t point the finger a M Barnier – the people responsible, are first and foremost the British PM and the 52%who voted for brexit. Dont you all remember the logo – Save 350,000 pounds per day on the so called battle bus. That was just one example of the british people being misled.

  4. Well said Sal on 08 December. I was staggered at some of the ineffective negotiating postures adopted by UK representatives. If the EU was imperfect in these negotiations, the UK was impressively bad; indeed as results and consequences are showing time after time. And since when is just 52% of those who voted a convincing majority when it equals a convincing minority of those entitled to vote – around 37% wasn’t it!

  5. We would have been completely f**ked over by the Tory government – but luckily EU pushed for a lot of rights for its citizens in U.K. – and Brits in EU got the exact equivalent of that too. Unfortunately freedom of movement didn’t apply here as U.K. is a single country…

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POLITICS

French parliament backs bill against hair discrimination affecting black women

France's lower house of parliament on Thursday approved a bill forbidding workplace discrimination based on hair texture, which the draft law's backers say targets mostly black women wearing their hair naturally.

French parliament backs bill against hair discrimination affecting black women

Olivier Serva, an independent National Assembly deputy for the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe and the bill’s sponsor, said it would penalise any workplace discrimination based on “hair style, colour, length or texture”.

Similar laws exist in around 20 US states which have identified hair discrimination as an expression of racism.

In Britain, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued guidelines against hair discrimination in schools.

Serva, who is black, said women “of African descent” were often encouraged before job interviews to change their style of hair. Backers also say that men who wear their hair in styles like dreadlocks are also affected.

The bill was approved in the lower house National Assembly with 44 votes in favour and two against. It will now head to the upper Senate where the right has the majority and the vote’s outcome is much less certain.

‘Target of discrimination’

Serva, who also included discrimination suffered by blondes and redheads in his proposal, points to an American study stating that a quarter of black women polled said they had been ruled out for jobs because of how they wore their hair at the job interview.

Such statistics are hard to come by in France, which bans the compilation of personal data that mention a person’s race or ethnic background on the basis of the French Republic’s “universalist” principles.

The draft law does not, in fact, contain the term “racism”, noted Daphne Bedinade, a social anthropologist, saying the omission was problematic.

“To make this only about hair discrimination is to mask the problems of people whose hair makes them a target of discrimination, mostly black women,” she told Le Monde daily.

A black Air France air crew member in 2022 won a 10-year legal battle for the right to work with braided hair on flights after a decision by France’s highest appeals court.

While statistics are difficult to come by, high-profile people have faced online harassment because of their hairstyle.

In the political sphere they include former government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye, and Audrey Pulvar, a deputy mayor of Paris, whose afro look has attracted much negative comment online.

The bill’s critics say it is unnecessary, as discrimination based on looks is already banned by law.

“There is no legal void here,” said Eric Rocheblave, a lawyer specialising in labour law.

Calling any future law “symbolic”, Rocheblave said it would not be of much practical help when it came to proving discrimination in court.

Kenza Bel Kenadil, an influencer and self-proclaimed “activist against hair discrimination”, said a law would still send an important message.

“It would tell everybody that the law protects you in every way and lets you style your hair any way you want,” she said.

The influencer, who has 256,000 followers on Instagram, said she herself had been “forced” to tie her hair in a bun when she was working as a receptionist.

Her employers were “very clear”, she said. “It was, either you go home and fix your hair or you don’t come here to work”.

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