LONDON: Michel Barnier, the French lawyer who led the EU’s Brexit negotiations, has called for a five-year ban on immigration into Europe, referring to the bloc’s borders and internal Schengen passport-free zone as a “sieve.”
Barnier, 70, said he will wait until autumn to make a decision about whether to stand for the French presidency next year. His comments come at a time of heightened rhetoric around immigration and Islam in France.
Barnier said an immigration ban would help fight crime and terrorism domestically, and ease tensions that have led to a surge in support for far-right candidates.
“The problems of immigration are not trifling. As a politician, I know how to see the problems as they are and how the French people experience them, and how to find solutions,” he added.
“I think we have to take the time for three or five years to suspend immigration, but not all immigrants are potential terrorists, or criminals — notably those who cross the Mediterranean for a better life.”
Barnier expressed sympathy for hundreds of retired and serving French military personnel who signed letters in recent weeks referring to the dangers posed to France of “Islamist hordes.”
He also appeared to back calls for a ban on headscarves worn in public, a policy that would disproportionately affect Muslim women. “We must clearly reaffirm that religious insignia cannot enter the public space,” he said.
A swing to harsher views on migration and Islam has become increasingly mainstream in France, with President Emmanuel Macron also having called for tighter controls on borders and a review of the Schengen Agreement.
Far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, Macron’s biggest rival for the presidency, has also called for a temporary end to immigration from outside the EU, to be replaced by a limit of just 10,000 people per year.
