France set for major crackdown on illegal migrants with plot to expel those who ‘break in’ after Moroccan man due to be deported arrested for murder of teenage girl

France’s interior minister has said the new government is open to toughening immigration laws.

It comes as the government is under pressure from the far-right National Rally (RN) after the arrest of a Moroccan man suspected of murdering a 19-year-old woman in Paris.

Marine Le Pen’s RN party has jumped on the murder of the young student, identified by authorities only by her first name, Philippine, as vindication of its calls for tougher immigration and crime laws.

Under pressure from the RN, which holds major political sway over Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s newly installed government, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said that he would look into changing the law to prevent such a situation from happening again.

The suspect, a 22-year-old Moroccan man who had previously been convicted of rape in France and was due to be deported, was arrested in Geneva, Switzerland, from where French authorities would seek his extradition, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

Retailleau, a long-time immigration hawk, said in a statement: “Faced with such a tragedy, preceded by many others, we cannot just condemn it or be outraged. It’s up to us, public officials, to…update our legislation, to protect the French.”

RN party chief Jordan Bardella accused the state of being too soft on security and immigration. He wrote on social media: “It’s time for this government to act: our compatriots are angry and will not be content with just words.

“Philippine’s life was stolen from her by a Moroccan migrant targeted by an OQTF (obligation to leave France deportation order).”

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Greens lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau warned against the far right using the murder to “spread its racist hatred”.

Official Eurostat data shows France deports more non-EU citizens than any other European Union nation. However, it issues so many expulsion orders, two to five times more than Germany in each quarter over the past two years, that its ratio of enforced expulsion orders is low.

In the first quarter of 2024, France ordered the expulsion of 34,190 non-EU citizens, or nearly a third of all expulsions ordered across the EU, but only deported 4,205 people.

Bureaucracy, diplomatic rows and a reluctance by some countries to accept the return of people holding criminal convictions are amongst the reasons why far fewer expulsions than are ordered are actually enforced.

Thousands of angry left-wing protesters took to French streets earlier this month after President Emmanuel Macron appointed a conservative prime minister, Michel Barnier following months of political deadlock.

The appointment came after a snap general election left France with a hung parliament formed of three roughly equal blocs, the New Popular Front (NFP), the centre, including Macron’s Renaissance party and the hard-right RN party.

Olivier Faure, the first secretary of the Socialist party (PS), said Macron’s decision to name Barnier PM put him in the far right’s pocket.

He posted on social media: “Macron and his friends could have chosen not to punish the NFP, to let it govern while accepting it would have to compromise because it would not have an absolute majority. Instead, he preferred to put himself under the control of the RN.”