The French parliament has voted to increase the budget for immigration by three per cent to a total of 1.9 billion euros, predicting an increase in migrants next year.
French MPs approved the three per cent budget increase which will see immigration spending go from €1.84 billion in 2021 to €1.90 billion in 2022, as many expect that migratory flows will increase in the coming year.
The new allocations will pay for at least 1,500 new accommodation places at Reception and Review Centres (CAES), where asylum seekers first begin their asylum process, and around 3,400 places in asylum homes for the first half of next year, French newspaper Le Figaro reports.
MPs belonging to the centre-right Les Republicains criticised the budget increase, with MP Pierre-Henri Dumont saying the government would do better by spending more to stop the flow of illegal immigrants coming into France.
In the last five years, the immigration budget has increased year after year, from a high of 22 per cent in 2018 to a low of two per cent in 2021.
France to Spend One Billion Euros on Healthcare for Illegal Migrants in 2022 https://t.co/veinLMv8tE
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 24, 2021
While the immigration budget sits at €1.90 billion for 2022, the true costs for mass migration in France have been reported at sums far higher.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated in 2019 that mass migration cost the French state up to 10 billion euros per year when all factors, such as housing, healthcare, and social benefits, are taken into consideration.
In September, the French government proposed spending at least a billion euros in 2022 on migrant healthcare alone — a figure that has doubled since 2015.
Minister for Health Olivier Véran claimed that as many as 383,000 migrants were benefitting from state medical aid, which includes funding for medical and hospital expenses for migrants living in the country for at least three months.
French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has revealed her plan to drastically reduce immigration into the country. https://t.co/ONDnX4Ee3z
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 1, 2021
Immigration is shaping up to be one of the main issues in next spring’s French presidential election, with all of the three leading candidates showing tough lines in the subject, including populist leader Marine Le Pen, who has proposed a referendum that could radically change the French immigration system.
Emmanuel Macron, the establishment centrist incumbent president, has also taken a somewhat harder line on mass migration, recently limiting visas to North African countries who have refused to accept their nationals when the French government has sought to deport them.
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