“At the request of the President of the Republic, for two years, we have expelled 3,000 delinquent foreigners,” he said during a press briefing at the Rhône prefecture, without specifying the nationalities or the charges.
“It’s an unprecedented increase (…) and we must continue to do so”, added the tenant of Place Beauvau, visiting the capital of Gaul to inaugurate an administrative detention center (CRA) open since January and announce the opening of a second center for early 2023, which will bring the number of places available in the conurbation to 280.
The minister also mentioned his wish to make “legislative changes” at the start of the school year regarding expulsion procedures.
“From January, when a policeman arrests a foreigner in an irregular situation, he can put him in the CRA for three months to find a way to deport him to his country,” he said.
Saturday afternoon, Mr. Darmanin exchanged with residents of La Guillotière, a working-class district in the center of Lyon. He also met the three police officers who had been attacked in this district on the evening of July 20, when they were trying to arrest a person suspected of theft, in the middle of a crowd who violently attacked them.
Friday evening, a Bac policeman was hit and dragged by a man on a scooter refusing to comply. The suspect, who was alcoholic, was arrested and taken into custody. The police officer has four days of temporary interruption of work.
During his visit, the minister multiplied the criticisms of the policy of the environmentalist mayor of Lyon Grégory Doucet, in particular in terms of security.
The latter, who came to La Guillotière on Friday, said he would not attend the ministerial trip: “it’s not a minister we need but more staff”, he said. he tweeted on Friday asking for 300 more Net National Police.
Mr. Darmanin, who proposes to meet the mayor in September, hammered home that “there have been more than 100” additional police officers in Lyon “since I have been minister”, a “new CRS on duty” as well as “200 police officers of the PAF” (border police) who will arrive in January 2023.
Reacting in a tweet to these “new promises”, Grégory Doucet stressed that it was “imperative that, this time, his commitments (from the minister) be followed up, in particular on the workforce”.
