Refugees sent back to Turkey. A French municipality lowers the EU flag
Rights — di Andrea Barolini
The mayor of a small town in Brittany has decided to rebel against European policies on refugees, which have also been strongly condemned by NGOs.
Refugees sent back to Turkey. A French municipality lowers the EU flag
The mayor of a small town in Brittany has decided to rebel against European policies on refugees, which have also been strongly condemned by NGOs.
Vern-sur-Seiche is a French municipality of eight thousand inhabitants. Located a few kilometres from Rennes, in Brittany, it has made the front pages of all the French newspapers for having officially decided to rebel against the European Union's decision to send back to Turkey the majority of refugees arriving on the Greek islands.
"From here we are launching a humane and solidarity-based movement"
The town councillors met on Saturday morning for an extraordinary session: "We cannot remain indifferent in the face of EU policy on the management of migrants. From here, we want to lay the foundations of a movement calling for a more humane and solidarity-based Europe," declared the mayor, the socialist Didier Moyon. At the end of the municipal council meeting, together with representatives of various parties, the mayor went outside the town hall and lowered the blue flag of the European Union.
In the text voted on by the local administration (with twenty-five votes in favour and only four against), the words of the writer Stéphane Hessel, author of the celebrated pamphlet "Indignatevi", were cited: "Ladies and gentlemen, leaders, allow us to remind you of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
The NGOs: "A shameful agreement that denies human rights"
In the same vein, Boris Cheshirkov, of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Unhcr), recalled that "refugees need protection, not to be turned away." Amnesty International spoke of "a historic blow to human rights," while Oxfam accused European and Turkish leaders of "turning these people into a political bargaining chip," condemning in particular the concessions obtained by Ankara. Furthermore, the president of Medici senza frontiere, Loris Filippi, was blunt: "It is the agreement of shame, which reduces people to mere numbers, denying them humane treatment and the right to seek protection in Europe."
The European Union presses ahead. With 4,000 officers
Nonetheless, the EU is preparing to implement the plan. The European border agency (Frontex) will deploy eight vessels, each capable of taking on board up to 400 migrants. Around four thousand officers will also be mobilised, along with 400 asylum experts and an equal number of interpreters, according to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. He nonetheless emphasised the intention to complement EU policies with an increase in the number of people received on Greek territory: "Greece will host twenty thousand people on its islands, compared to the current six thousand."
In the meantime, landings on the island of Lesbos continue. Between Friday and Saturday alone, 1,500 people arrived. According to the Turkish news agency Anatolia, a four-month-old baby drowned at dawn during the sinking of a vessel.