Le Pen Denounces Migrant Taxi NGOs as Part of ‘Modern Slavery’

French populist leader Marine Le Pen denounced the activities of migrant taxi NGOs, linking them to people trafficking and modern slavery.

Le Pen made her statements on France’s national day of the abolition of the slave trade on Monday, criticising NGOs, which operate primarily in the Mediterranean Sea, for picking up migrants and transporting them to Europe.

“The trafficking of human beings organised by smugglers in the Mediterranean and encouraged under the guise of misguided humanism by NGOs funded by the European Union is part of this modern slavery,” Le Pen alleged in a statement released by her party, the National Rally.

“Slavery, as it was practised, was recognised as a crime against humanity. Its modern form and the resulting economic human trafficking is an abomination,” Le Pen said, adding that France should return to being a symbol to the world against tyranny, saying the country must fight against modern slavery.

“In particular, it requires breaking with ultraliberalism and globalism and putting the economy at the service of man, not the other way around,” she said.

Le Pen is not the first to accuse migrant taxi NGOs of being linked to people-traffickers, as such accusations have been levelled against so-called civil society groups for years.

In 2017, the Italian government released photographs that claimed to show people-smugglers directly working with a German NGO.

The following year, a former member of the security staff for a migrant taxi NGO claimed to have received death threats from far-left extremists after he had blown the whistle on activists allegedly co-operating with people-traffickers by alerting Italian authorities.

In July 2020, the German Joint Analysis and Strategy Centre for Illegal Migration (Gasim) levelled allegations of co-operation between the so-called charities and people-traffickers, saying that the criminals track the NGO vessels in the Mediterranean and send migrants to them.

The report also claimed that gangs had directly communicated with NGOs using a satellite phone in some cases.

Last week, Sea-Watch dropped off 454 migrants in Sicily, and SOS Mediterranee had delivered another 236 to the island just days before. Landings of illegal immigrants have soared in recent days.