Immigration: Bruno Retailleau mobilizes 4,000 police officers for checks in train stations and buses

Before heading to the Gare du Nord in Paris this morning to witness some of the border checks on migrants at train stations and buses, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced that these checks would involve "4,000 gendarmes, police officers, customs officers, and Sentinelle (armed) forces to arrest illegal immigrants," Retailleau explained.

"Since the beginning of the year, we have arrested 47,000," Bruno Retailleau said on Cnews and Europe 1, which has made the fight against immigration his favorite theme. In a note addressed in particular to the prefects, the Minister of the Interior gave instructions for a national operation to monitor "trains bound for neighboring countries and major French cities, both arriving and departing."

The man who is also the leader of the Republicans praised in this document a "significant increase in the interception of ESI (illegal immigrants) in recent weeks (+28%)" and a "national operation to control flows", carried out on May 20 and 21, which resulted in more than 750 arrests.

On Wednesday, the Interior Minister announced that he had "reintroduced border controls much more strictly than before," with a "border force" composed of police, gendarmes, customs officers, and military personnel. "What I mean is that illegal immigrants are not welcome in France in the strongest and most definitive way," he said.