French politician calls for 'Frexit' due to riots

Source: Schengen Visa Info

61-year-old France presidential candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan believes that the large numbers of migrants who have failed to integrate into French society are responsible for the repeating riots in the country.

He also insists that the solution to this problem is France leaving the Schengen Area.

Last Friday, the opposition MP told CNews television channel that the violent riots that have taken place in recent years in France are a result of the excessive number of migrants who have not integrated into the country, suggesting that resolving this problem requires France to leave the borderless zone of Schengen.

“I am the only one to ask for the re-establishment of national borders and for leaving Schengen,” Dupont-Aignan said, expressing his awareness that the “entire French political class was opposed to the idea” even though Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen of the National Rally had pledged to impose border checks during the 2022 election cycle.

However, presenting data on the most recent riots in the country, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has pointed out that only ten percent of the riot participants were non-French. The riots have been caused by the murder of a boy of Moroccan and Algerian descent on June 27 by the police, during a traffic stop.

In spite of his views on France’s Schengen Membership, Dupont-Aignan believes that the country’s place is within the European Union, opposing a possible “Frexit”, though he believes that the member states should have more autonomy. He also believes France should leave NATO.

He is not the first French politician to criticize the way the Schengen Zone functions. Aside from Le Pen, current President Emanuel Macron himself in the past years has continuously called for the “refoundation of the Schengen Area.”

He has also accused the rest of the Schengen member countries of imposing internal border controls even when they are not absolutely needed, though France itself has had internal border controls imposed with at least one Member State at all times.

“We should radically overhaul Schengen to rethink its organization, to intensify our common border protection with a real security police force at the external borders of the area, but also by strengthening the integration of our rules and … a joint operation of our ministers in charge of internal and security matters,” President Macron had said in December 2021 during a visit to Le Perthus, on the border with Spain.

France held the Presidency of the EU in the first half of 2022, during which it had promised to make the needed reforms to the Schengen Area. Though the country made some progress on the asylum and immigration pact, no changes were made regarding the way Schengen functions and its laws.