Sarkozy under fire for pledge to expel ‘threatening foreigners’

Date: 17/11/05

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's pledge to expel "without delay" foreigners suspected of threatening public order represents a very real danger for European citizenship, a leading expert on the issue has warned.

Tony Venables, head of the Brussels-based European Citizen Action Service (ECAS), said that Sarkozy's promise risked undermining the principle of equal treatment that lies at the heart of the concept of EU citizenship.

"European citizenship is very much in danger. Every time something like this happens it erodes the concept that much more," said Venables.

Sarkozy made his controversial statement to the French parliament on 9 November, at the height of the epidemic of rioting and car-burning that exploded across the country at the beginning of this month.

"I have asked...that foreigners who have been condemned be expelled without delay from the national territory, including people with the right to live in France," he said to applause from right-wing parliamentarians.

He followed up his pledge on Saturday (12 November) by telling journalists at a Paris police station that, "there should be expulsions right at the beginning of the week, perhaps even on Monday".

EU law states that citizens of the Union's 25 member states are also citizens of the EU. As such, they have the right to live wherever they want to on EU territory and enjoy the same rights as nationals in their adopted homeland. For example a Spanish person living in France should have the same rights as a French person. There are exceptions to this rule. The right to live anywhere in the Union does not yet apply to nationals of the Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU last year, for example, and people moving to another member state cannot vote in national elections or take up certain public-sector jobs.

But the basic principle is clear and Sarkozy's critics said he was blatantly ignoring it. While legally resident non-French EU citizens risk speedy deportation from his country if they are deemed a threat, French EU citizens do not, said detractors.

More importantly, according to Sarkozy's critics, people threatened with fast-track expulsion have no time to appeal against a deportation order. The current unrest began on 27 October, yet Sarkozy was promising the first expulsions last Monday (14 November).

According to Sarkozy's critics, it is not possible for a person to be arrest-ed, condemned, appeal against a ruling and receive a decision on their appeal in less than three weeks. Some observers warn that unless the situation changes, non-French EU citizens living in the country could start shying away from exercising their right to protest for fear of being arrested and deported simply for finding themselves in a march that turned violent.

"These kinds of policies are not really compatible with the idea of citizenship. If European citizenship is taken seriously, there should be no expulsions," Venables argued.

The European Commission points out that all EU member states are obliged to respect the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that people threatened with expulsion should generally be granted a right to appeal before they are deported.

"There is clear jurisprudence on this issue both at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg and at the Strasbourg European Court of Human Rights," Commission spokesman for justice, freedom and security spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing said. Roscam Abbing conceded that in truly exceptional circumstances an EU government could expel a foreigner before the appeal process was completed. But he added that such practices could only be invoked on a case-by-case basis in the most extreme situations.

Officials at Nicolas Sarkozy's private office declined to comment on the minister's recent statements.

• Simon Cross is a freelance journalist based in Rennes, France.

Article reports that according to Tony Venables, head of the Brussels-based European Citizen Action Service (ECAS), the French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's pledge to expel 'without delay' foreigners suspected of threatening public order represented a very real danger for European citizenship.