SHARE
COPY LINK

IMMIGRATION

Immigration reforms: France to offer refugees 400 hours of French lessons

France is to double the number of French lessons it offers to refugees to 400 hours in order to help them integrate, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced Tuesday.

Immigration reforms: France to offer refugees 400 hours of French lessons
A volunteer gives a French lesson to migrants at Place de Stalingrad in Paris. Photo: AFP
The extra lessons are part of immigration reforms under President Emmanuel Macron intended to balance swifter deportation of rejected asylum seekers with better support for those allowed to stay.
   
The lessons will rise to 600 hours for new arrivals who are particularly struggling to learn the language, Philippe said after the first meeting of an inter-ministerial committee set up to work on the integration question.
   
Philippe said French efforts to integrate migrants had until now “lacked ambition”, adding that the country needed a policy “worthy of our republic for all those to whom we give the right to stay in France”.
   
He did not say how much the scheme would cost.
 
 
Photo: AFP
 
Extra language lessons were proposed as part of dozens of measures in a report by Aurelien Tache, a lawmaker from Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) party, which he estimated would cost a total 607 million euros ($710 million).
   
France will also double to 24 hours the “civic training” courses given to refugees, designed to explain French values as well as practicalities such as how to obtain work, healthcare and housing.
   
Many recent arrivals find the barrage of information in the current 12-hour course overwhelming, but Philippe said an understanding of fundamental French values such as liberty, fraternity and equality was “not an option but an obligation”.
   
Immigrant parents will also be offered free childcare during their French lessons, while those turning 18 will have access to a new 500-euro “culture pass” for young people to spend on museum trips and other cultural activities. 
   
Philippe said the measures, which will also include better help for immigrants in finding jobs, were an investment in France's “national and social cohesion”.
   
France received a record 100,000 asylum applications last year and offered refugee status to around 30,000 people, while deporting 14,900.
   
Though the notorious “Jungle” camp in Calais was cleared in 2016, increasing numbers of migrants have been camping along the canals in Paris in recent months, many from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan.
 
On Monday police began evacuating around 1,000 migrants from two makeshift camps, five days after another 1,000 were taken to temporary lodgings.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Germany said Tuesday it was considering allowing deportations to Afghanistan, after an asylum seeker from the country injured five and killed a police officer in a knife attack.

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Officials had been carrying out an “intensive review for several months… to allow the deportation of serious criminals and dangerous individuals to Afghanistan”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told journalists.

“It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to Germany’s security must be deported quickly,” Faeser said.

“That is why we are doing everything possible to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan,” she said.

Deportations to Afghanistan from Germany have been completely stopped since the Taliban retook power in 2021.

But a debate over resuming expulsions has resurged after a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of attacking people with a knife at an anti-Islam rally in the western city of Mannheim on Friday.

A police officer, 29, died on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed as he tried to intervene in the attack.

Five people taking part in a rally organised by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were also wounded.

Friday’s brutal attack has inflamed a public debate over immigration in the run up to European elections and prompted calls to expand efforts to expel criminals.

READ ALSO: Tensions high in Mannheim after knife attack claims life of policeman

The suspect, named in the media as Sulaiman Ataee, came to Germany as a refugee in March 2013, according to reports.

Ataee, who arrived in the country with his brother at the age of only 14, was initially refused asylum but was not deported because of his age, according to German daily Bild.

Ataee subsequently went to school in Germany, and married a German woman of Turkish origin in 2019, with whom he has two children, according to the Spiegel weekly.

Per the reports, Ataee was not seen by authorities as a risk and did not appear to neighbours at his home in Heppenheim as an extremist.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors on Monday took over the investigation into the incident, as they looked to establish a motive.

SHOW COMMENTS