“There is a big fraud being carried out,” said Haddad, who pushed to toughen the EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact as well as the Returns Regulation, which deals with migrant deportations.
Haddad’s remarks amount to a political attack against the National Rally on its core position — clamping down on migration. In his wide-ranging interview with POLITICO published Monday, Bardella blasted the EU as being responsible for “uncontrolled immigration” into the 27-member bloc while saying he agrees with JD Vance’s view that France was being “submerged by massive migration.”
Haddad spoke to POLITICO before the interview with Bardella was published.
For Haddad, who said he plans to run for election without specifying in what capacity, the Bardella position smacks of hypocrisy. The minister said Marine Le Pen, the former National Rally leader, was “virulently opposed” to the Returns Regulation before voting in favor of it in the European Parliament.
‘Above and beyond’
The Migration and Asylum Pact governs how migrants are distributed among EU countries after people enter the bloc. Bardella’s party was also critical of the Returns Regulation, which gives countries more latitude to deport migrants whose asylum requests have been denied, but ultimately backed it in the European Parliament.
Haddad said that he had worked with French conservative lawmaker François-Xavier Bellamy on the Returns Regulation — and said he was pushing “above and beyond the returns regulation for us [EU] to harden instruments such as visas, conditionality for development aid.”