Tuesday, September 8, 2015

French govt blasts mayors' ‘Christian refugees only’ comments

The French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve condemned on Tuesday mayors in the country who have said they are only prepared to allow Christian refugees to settle in their towns.

With Europe struggling to cope with a massive influx of people fleeing violence and poverty, many from war-torn Syria, France is among a number of countries that has pledged to settle thousands of refugees within its borders.

But on Monday, Yves Nicolin, mayor of Roanne in central France, said his town would only accept refugees if they were Christians.

Roanne would be prepared to house “a dozen families, providing they are Christian refugees who are persecuted in Syria by Daesh (the Islamic State group) for being Christians", Nicolin, a member of Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right Les Republicains party, told France Bleu radio.

That way he could be sure they were not "terrorists in disguise", he said.

That was followed by similar comments from Damien Meslot, the mayor of Belfort in eastern France and also a member of the opposition Les Republicains, who said he would only consider taking in Christian families from Iraq and Syria because "they are the most persecuted".

Muslims ‘persecuted with the same degree of barbarity’

Speaking to the France 2 television channel Tuesday, Cazeneuve condemned the mayors’ comments as “dreadful”.

"I really don't understand this distinction,” he said.

"A whole series of minorities are being persecuted in the situation in Syria. Christians from the Middle East must be welcomed, but there are also Muslims and other minorities who are persecuted with the same degree of barbarity."

Under pressure to respond to Europe's biggest migrant crisis since World War II, French President François Hollande said Monday that France was prepared to take in 24,000 people over two years.

The decision as to how the asylum-seekers are distributed around the country is to be taken by a separate government office, and not by individual town halls, the interior ministry said.

The French mayors' comments recall remarks from Slovakia in August saying they would only accept Christians when taking in Syrian refugees because Muslims would not feel at home there.
 (FRANCE 24 with AFP)

    france24.com
 8/9/15
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