Immigration law: “A text that will aggravate the exodus of African doctors”

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On the front page of the press, this Thursday, February 2, the presentation, yesterday, in France, of the immigration bill. A text already criticized by the right and the left.

Currently in the midst of a battle over pension reform, the government is facing a “new puzzle”, according to Le Figaro. The newspaper reports criticism from the Republicans, who saw in the bill defended by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, “a dangerous open door to massive regularizations and therefore an inevitable call for migratory air”. To the left, Mediapart accuses the executive of trying to “sort out the good foreigners from the bad” and relays the alert created by the migrant aid associations on “the need (for permanent residence permits), not subject to the vagaries of the economy (or to a) list of professions with variable geometry”, and on the risk, also, of taking migrants out of the “logic of social inclusion”.

The text of the government plans in particular to facilitate the expulsions of undocumented migrants and the creation of a residence permit for so-called “in tension” trades. The hardening of the asylum policy and the project to increase the number of obligations to leave the territory, the “OQTFs”, concerned the associations helping asylum seekers, who thought, according to them, of finding themselves, more and more often, both “without legal existence and without rights”, in detention centres.

Release cites the cases of undocumented Afghans, Somalis, Sudanese and Bangladeshis, regularly placed in detention, even though they are not deportable, because of the situation in their country, which amounts to a kind of double punishment for these applicants asylum, already subjected to the trauma of war and exile. The creation of a residence permit for jobs “under pressure”, especially for foreign doctors, also cause concern, in particular Africa, where one fears an “exodus (even more) mass of doctors”.

The world recalls that French-speaking Africa is the second provider of foreign practitioners in France, after the European Union. According to the Council of the Order of French Physicians, three quarters of the 2,000 practitioners to have passed the knowledge verification tests in 2022, were from the Maghreb, half of them from Algeria.

In French news, also, the start of the official visit to Paris, this Thursday, of the dismissed Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. For the issues of this visit, I invite you to consult the RFI website, which indicates that “the Iranian question should largely dominate the discussions” of Benyamin Netanyahu with Emmanuel Macron. According to our colleagues, the Jewish state is currently seeking to form “a military coalition, in particular with the Western powers, to strike at the Iranian regime”, which it fears will acquire nuclear weapons. RFI explains that Paris and Washington initially rejected this option, and preferred the diplomatic solution but that the situation finally “evolved”, because “the Iranian nuclear agreement seems definitively compromised”, and because Israel has ” made an effort to get closer to the West, in the Ukrainian file”, and now consider supporting kyiv militarily against Moscow”.

Also in this file, The Wall Street Journal announces, exclusively, that the French special forces seized, on January 15, a shipment of Iranian arms and ammunition, intended for the Yemeni rebels, within the framework, precisely, of this “effort to contain Tehran” and “to make accepting the UN arms embargo for the Houthis in Yemen”.

In the diplomatic section, also, the first summit for eight years between Spain and Morocco, this Thursday, February 2. It comes after Madrid’s controversial acceptance of Morocco’s policy in Western Sahara. Announced as “historic”, the visit with great fanfare by the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez and a dozen ministers to Rabat, is already experiencing a first hiccup, at least from the point of view of the Spanish press, and in particular of the very right handed ABC, who is not angry with the fact that King Mohammed VI was not deemed necessary to welcome Pedro Sanchez in person, reporting this meeting at a later date. “Mohammed VI pays little heed to the concessions made by Pedro Sanchez and the plant in Rabat,” the newspaper fumes.

The Moroccan press seems to have nothing to say about this. “The Morocco-Spain economic forum held in Rabat (it started on February 1) was an opportunity to expose all the potential that still remains to be developed to improve cooperation between the two countries and to open a new era. in their relationships”, relate Media 24without further comments.

Speaking of controversy, I suggest you throw an eyelash at Courrier International, which reports on the turmoil of the Portuguese media concerning the cost of the future World Youth Days, the WYD, scheduled for next summer in Lisbon. The cost of the work, 160 million euros, is debated, in particular the approximately 5 million authorized by the town hall for the construction of a gigantic altar for the closing mass. Expenses that go wrong in a Portugal in the midst of a crisis, where the money, it seems, is made “to pay correct salaries to doctors, teachers, or school life auxiliaries”. “Is it really very Catholic?” asks the Portuguese press, taken up by International mail.

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