Un hundred NGOs from France, Europe and the three Maghreb countries concerned by the visa restriction launched a petition last week, in which they denounce a policy “discriminatory and unfair”conducted by the French authorities “under the pretext of fighting once morest irregular immigration”.
For this collective, these restrictions are only one “collective punishment, unjust, aiming indiscriminately” the populations of these three countries.
“We ask the French authorities and European countries to reverse these discriminatory measures”
The same NGOs warned the French government of the opposite effect of its decision: “These measures (…) produce on the contrary dramatic effects by pushing thousands of young and old to take crossings in the Mediterranean Sea at the risk of their lives.”
For these activists, these French measures are not only a matter “of one blackmail unacceptable and disgraceful”but theyviolate an essential human right: the free movement of persons”insisting that they also contradict the principle of equal citizenship: “Thus, French men and women from Maghreb countries who wish to bring their parents for visits, for business or for health reasons are also deprived of a fundamental right.”
The associations, led by the Federation of Tunisians for citizenship on both shores, also deplored the new conditions for applying for French visas, which have become “a real obstacle course and, more often than not, an additional humiliation for the vast majority of those who take the steps”.
“We ask the French authorities and European countries to reverse these discriminatory measures”we conclude.
Among the NGOs supporting this petition are the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), the Citizenship and Freedom Association (Tunisia), the Association of the Two Shores (France), the Association of Moroccans in France ( France), the Collectif Debout (Algeria), the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Le Pont de Genève (Switzerland/Tunisia), the International Federation for Human Rights and the Euromed Rights network.
