Aerial view showing the SOS Méditerranée's Ocean Viking escorted by a military ship off northern Corsica, 10 November 2022 / © AFP
On Friday morning, the humanitarian ship Ocean Viking discharged 230 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean in the military port of Toulon. Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean Asselborn confirmed to RTL that Luxembourg will welcome some of them.
This is a first for France, which has raised tensions with Italy and sparked a new debate on the sensitive topic of immigration.
The Ocean Viking, an ambulance boat chartered by the French NGO SOS Méditerranée, docked in Toulonafter three weeks of roaming in search of a safe port in Italy.
The ship, whose fate has been the subject of several days of wrangling between Paris and Rome, arrived at the military port on Friday morning to disembark the migrants. The survivors on board the Ocean Viking, including 57 children rescued off the coast of Libya, “will not be able to leave the administrative centre where they will be placed and will therefore not technically be on French soil,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Thursday.
Two thirds of them will not stay in France anyway, as they will be relocated to nine countries, the French interior ministry said, including Germany, which will welcome around 80 migrants, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, and Ireland.
Contacted on Friday morning by RTL, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Jean Asselborn confirmed that he had discussed the matter with Darmanin and that Luxembourg would indeed receive migrants from the Ocean Viking, but he was hesitant to provide figures or other specifics for the time being.
The migrants’ arrival in France has particularly angered the far right, with notably Marine Le Pen accusing the government of being “too lax,” while the left and ecologists have praised the decision as “worthy of the values” of France.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, all of these people, who come from various countries, including some at war, such as Syria, will undergo health monitoring, followed by security checks by intelligence services, before being heard by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees (Ofpra), which grants refugee status.
In the midst of the presentation of a bill on immigration which plans to reform asylum procedures in order to increase the number of deportations, Darmanin’s entourage specified that “those who do not receive asylum will be removed directly from the waiting zone to their country of origin.”
Darmanin heavily criticised Italy’s new far-right government for refusing to open its ports to the Ocean Viking, despite the fact that maritime law required it to do so: “Italy has been very inhumane.”
The French interior minister announced the “immediate suspension” of the planned reception of 3,500 migrants currently in Italy and promised to draw “the consequences” on the other aspects of his “bilateral relationship.”
For its part, SOS Méditerranée said it felt “relief tinged with bitterness.” “The survivors have been through a real ordeal,” the NGO’s director, Sophie Beau, told AFP. Four of the 234 migrants on board had to be evacuated to Corsica on Thursday, including three for medical reasons.
According to a photographer on board with SOS Méditerranée, the news of the disembarkation sparked scenes of jubilation, including spontaneous embraces, singing, and tears of joy among the migrants, some of whom are from Eritrea, Syria, or South Sudan.
The Ocean Viking's journey / © AFP
Beau stressed once more that it is “essential that the European states put in place a permanent distribution mechanism.” Meanwhile, Italy ramps up its anti-migrant rhetoric.
“Europe must increase the pressure on the Italian government to force it to honour its commitments,” said Delphine Rouilleault, head of the association France terre d’asile.
Since June, a relocation system, which had already been implemented once in 2019, provides that a dozen Member States, including France and Germany, voluntarily host 8,000 migrants who arrived in so-called “frontline” countries such as Italy.
However, only 117 people have been transferred as a result of the process put in place in June. According to Italy, this is insufficient.
Since the beginning of the year, 1,891 migrants have disappeared in the Mediterranean while attempting to reach Europe, including 1,337 in the central Mediterranean, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).