MORE THAN 200 Tunisian migrants may be sent back to Italy by French authorities in the coming days after being arrested during police raids in Paris and Nice.
With tensions running high between France and Italy over immigration from Tunisia, police in Paris detained 138 Tunisians who had been living in an illegal squat in the north of the city, having arrived in France via Italy in recent weeks. About 250 riot police were deployed to evict the squatters following a request from city hall, the property’s owner, on fire safety grounds.
In a separate operation in Nice, 150 police and customs officers yesterday arrested 51 Tunisians illegally occupying a building in the southern city. This followed the arrests of 72 migrants at the same location on Tuesday. A spokesman for the local prefect said all those detained could be sent back to Italy or their country of origin, depending on the circumstances.
According to charity groups, 400-500 Tunisians have arrived in France since the uprising in their country in January.
Police in the Nice region have been carrying out patrols along a 20km stretch of road near the Italian border, and the security presence has also increased at train stations in Nice, Menton and Cannes as the government insists it will not allow recently arrived Tunisians to remain illegally.
In response to a dispute over immigration from north Africa between France and Italy, the European Commission this week outlined plans for emergency border controls in the Schengen visa-free travel zone.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy was angered by Rome’s decision to grant temporary residence permits to 20,000 Tunisian migrants who arrived in Italy by sea in recent months, giving them the right to travel between the 25 Schengen states.
French authorities provoked Italy’s ire recently by blocking a train carrying about 60 Tunisians from crossing the Italy-France border, saying only those who proved they could support themselves financially would be granted entry. The Italian government, which complains it has received inadequate help from neighbours in dealing with immigrants, made a formal complaint over that decision.
The dispute is set against a fraught political background in France, where the rise of the far-right Front National has made immigration a major battleground. Silvio Berlusconi has also come under domestic pressure on immigration from his coalition allies in the Northern League, who failed in their initial bid to deport Tunisian migrants who arrived by boat at the island of Lampedusa.