PARIS • French President Emmanuel Macron has said France "cannot host everyone", intensifying his tough rhetoric on immigration.
He had last week signalled a tougher line on immigration in the second half of his mandate, arguing that the government must stop voters from drifting to the far-right.
"France cannot host everyone if it wants to host people well," he told Europe 1 radio station yesterday in an interview from the United Nations in New York where he is attending the annual General Assembly.
Mr Macron noted that France has seen a sharp rise in the number of people seeking asylum since the 2017 presidential election and said much tighter European cooperation was needed. "There is not enough cooperation in Europe and we need to look at this migratory phenomenon and take decisions," he said.
The President's comments come as the French Parliament is set next week for a major debate on immigration policies, with the National Assembly - the Lower House - discussing the issue on Monday, and the Senate on Wednesday.
France had already toughened its immigration policies last year, but Mr Macron promised in April to address the issue again, in the wake of the violent "yellow vest" protests against his government.
Mr Macron, whose first term expires in 2022, is also keenly aware that his biggest political rival remains Ms Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally party, which has built its popularity on a strong anti-immigration stance.
"In order to be able to welcome everyone properly, we should not be too attractive a country," Mr Macron said.
He added that he wanted to look at the basket of state medical aid offered to migrants while emphasising that getting rid of such help entirely would be "ridiculous".
"We must evaluate it. We need a debate to assess what we do compared with our neighbours. Do we really have to fully reimburse everything? Aren't there some excesses?" he said.
Set up in 2000, under a then left-wing government led by Mr Lionel Jospin, the healthcare programme for illegal immigrants benefits some 300,000 people at an annual cost of close to €950 million (S$1.4 billion). Right and far-right parties have demanded its removal.
"It would be an error to say that the question of migration is a taboo or just something to raise when there are crises," he said, emphasising that France has always been a country of migration.
The President is aware of the risks of alienating some of his more liberal backers if he veers too far to the right. During the 2017 presidential campaign, Mr Macron lavished support for the open-door policy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in allowing in over a million refugees, saying it had "saved our collective dignity".
He noted two priorities now - giving asylum as quickly as possible to those who have a right to France's protection, and integrating them more effectively through more French courses and a more aggressive employment policy. But he said those who had entered France illegally needed to be moved away "much more efficiently".
According to OECD figures published earlier this month, France and Spain were among the few countries globally which registered a big increase in asylum applications last year. France received a record 122,743 asylum requests, up 22 per cent compared with 2017.
As Mr Macron seeks to quell any future unrest that could derail his economic reforms, his government will offer French taxpayers new tax cuts tomorrow in its 2020 budget.
The budget will contain more than €10 billion of new tax cuts, benefiting households in particular, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Tuesday.
"This is an unprecedented tax cut. It's a fact that tax cuts have been stepped up in response to the 'yellow vests'," Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin said on France Inter radio yesterday.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
