Migrants who’ve been forced across the Franco-Italian border have accused the French police of being racists and treating them badly. Reporters from the Italian newspaper Il Giornale spoke with several migrants along the border including a man named Hamid who claimed that French police had forced him back across the border into Italy while hurling insults at him. Hamid told reporters, “When the French police understood that I am Algerian, they started insulting me in Arabic." [ 253 more words ]
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voiceofeurope.com

Migrants claim French border police are racists who treat them badly - Voice of Europe


By Arthur Lyons 25 July 2019



Migrants who’ve been forced across the Franco-Italian border have accused the French police of being racists and treating them badly.
Reporters from the Italian newspaper Il Giornale spoke with several migrants along the border including a man named Hamid who claimed that French police had forced him back across the border into Italy while hurling insults at him.
Hamid told reporters, “When the French police understood that I am Algerian, they started insulting me in Arabic.”

“They told me ‘**** your mother’. They are racists,” he added.
A report from France’s National Borders Assistance for Foreigners (Anafé) has also accused the police of racism claiming that train “passengers are subdivided and selected on the basis of ‘external’ signs, such as skin color, ‘smell’, clothing”.
The report also accuses the police of “asking for the documents only to people with physical traits that may suggest that they originate from African or Middle East countries.”
Reporters from Il Giornale also spoke to a man named Daren who lives in the border town of Ventimiglia who happened to be detained by French police for the reason that he looked like he might be a migrant.
“I live in Ventimiglia with my family I was just going to do a concert. I’m a singer,” he told reporters.
These latest reports follow another Il Giornale report from October of 2018 which confirmed that French police were driving across the border into Italy and dropping off migrants in the town of Claviere.
After hearing about it, Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini slammed the French, saying: “What happened to Claviere is an unprecedented offense against our country.”
In a letter sent to France’s interior minister Christophe Castaner, Matteo Salvini stated that Italy would no longer be Europe’s dumping ground for migrants, writing: “The choices made only in Paris and Berlin are enough, Italy is no longer willing to accept all immigrants arriving in Europe.”
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