Fernand Gontier, the former director of the French Border Police, has warned that mass migration into Europe is becoming “unmanageable” and “destabilising.”
Speaking to Le Figaro on August 18, Gontier warned that France’s Border Police were increasingly finding it difficult to manage the influx, especially since they are struggling to recruit new members.
“Illegal immigration, forced and massive, is becoming unmanageable, dangerous and destabilising for democracies and our ways of life,” he told the outlet.
“Borders thus make it possible to protect the general interest in the face of individual foreign interests.”
Gontier warned that the French Border Police and customs did not have the means to carry out their duties properly. He pointed to a lack of staff and technological equipment, little cooperation between different parts of the French government, and an increasingly restrictive legal framework.
He cited the decision of the Council of State court in February this year that prohibits the forced expulsion of illegal immigrants
On a European level, Schengen also posed a problem, because “there is a real lack of co-operation” between different agencies.
Frontex, the European border agency, is recruiting 10,000 extra staff to work for it but Gontier said Paris was “reluctant” to put extra pressure on the agency because of the question of sovereignty.
Border guards lack access to technology such as thermal detectors, carbon dioxide detectors, heartbeat detectors or silhouette detectors that can identify people attempting to cross borders hidden in vehicles, for example.
“These tools are almost exclusively used at the approximately 120 airports and ports that are border crossing points,” Gontier noted.
They are not used at the internal borders, “even though the latter represents 90 per cent of illegal immigration entering the national territory.”
Fabrice Leggeri, former head of Frontex and current MEP for the French hard-right National Rally Party, agreed with Gontier.
“The revelations of the former head of the PAF are damning: lack of resources, inadequate training, lax legal framework … Border control has deteriorated, threatening our security,” he wrote on X.
“As Fernand Gontier recommends, we need increased resources, real coordination and the use of advanced technologies to support border police.”