Populist leader Marine Le Pen has vowed to deport any and all criminal migrants if she wins the French presidency in 2022.
The National Rally (RN) leader released a video earlier this week on Twitter saying that she wanted to combat the “ensauvagement” of society, a French term describing the growing and ongoing lawless, and often violent, behaviour in certain parts of the country.
“The role of a politician, let alone a government, is not to comment, denounce or condemn, but to act,” Le Pen said. She highlighted a recent Odoxa poll that claimed up to 68 per cent of the French public felt they were not safe in their day-to-day lives, the highest result in four years, RTL reports.
“When the time comes to exercise power, I will not tremble: the offenders will be put back in their place, that is to say in prison if they are French, and on the plane, if they are foreigners,” Le Pen added.
Le Pen’s comments come after new French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced the government would be looking at extending the powers of municipal police on a trial basis in the city of Nice but did not go into details of the scope of the new powers.
In recent months, even during the Wuhan coronavirus lockdown, France has seen no-go neighbourhoods across the country explode into riots and violence, often connected to allegations of police brutality.
Attacks on police and firefighters have been constant as well, with police in the department of Yvelines claiming in April that they had been targetted by attacks nearly every day for around two weeks.
Some police have become so afraid of the consequences of being accused of police brutality or racism that they have even let people assault them, as was the case with two plainclothes officers in Le Mans last month.
“I did not want to hit her because it was a woman, black moreover. With the particular context of the moment, I especially didn’t want us to talk about police violence,” an officer said after being hit in the face by a woman.
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