Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz met with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss their mutual fight against political Islam.
Chancellor Kurz flew to Paris on Tuesday to meet President Macron in person. They then held a video conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, European Council President Charles Michel, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to discuss reforming the Schengen open border agreement.
President Macron went on to link terrorism and illegal immigration saying, according to Le Figaro: “We must not confuse the fight against illegal immigration with terrorism, but we must look clearly at the links between these two phenomena.”
Austria: Mosques Dissolved, Raided After Radical Islamic Terror Attack https://t.co/5p9FZyV0E6
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 8, 2020
“We must work on an overhaul of the Schengen area … so that it is also a safe area,” Macron added and stated that if Free Movement were one of the EU’s achievements, it was also based “on a promise of protection and security of our external borders”.
“This second promise has not been sufficiently kept,” he added and noted how the Nice church attacker had come to Europe as an illegal migrant from Tunisia, after landing on the Italian island of Lampedusa.
President Macron went on to say: “Public opinion in states facing the terrorist threat will not be able to accept the maintenance of our open borders for long if we do not fundamentally reform the Schengen area.”
Chancellor Kurz, meanwhile, thanked EU member states for their solidarity following the terrorist attack in Vienna last week that left four victims dead. “We are in constant danger,” Kurz said and added that there were thousands of “foreign fighters” within the EU.
The Austrian leader added that the EU must secure its external borders, fight the financing of radical Islamist associations, and combat the ideology of radical Islamism.
Macron Calls on EU to Restore Internal Border Controls to Combat Terrorist Migrants https://t.co/NBFwvYnGcT
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 7, 2020
Both leaders have promised to crack down on radical Islamist groups following the recent terror attacks in Yvelines, Nice, and Vienna.
France has dissolved associations and temporarily closed a mosque linked to spreading information that contributed to the murder of teacher Samuel Paty, while Austria has raided and closed radical mosques.
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