With a shuttle
France transports refugees back to Switzerland
Many refugees travel illegally through Switzerland to get to France, for example. But the French do not simply want to accept this, as the statement of a border police officer shows.
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Many refugees from North Africa or Afghanistan take their chance and travel illegally to Western Europe via Switzerland (symbol image).
Marian NadlerEditor News
There are always chaotic scenes on the trains that travel from Basel to France. Because the crowd is big. Many migrants take their chance and travel through Switzerland to Western Europe. In this country, the refugees have nothing to fear. Switzerland lets them pass. Much to the annoyance of other countries. German politicians have already criticized the lax controls. “Switzerland must act urgently and prove itself to be a reliable partner within Europe,” said Ann-Veruschka Jurisch (50).
France has apparently found its own solution. They send back refugees who are of legal age and do not have the necessary documents. “You will then be brought back with a shuttle and handed over to the Swiss authorities at Basel train station,” says a commander of the French border police to the regional broadcaster France3.
The French would scrutinize the trains closely. Due to the confusing situation, surveillance teams are therefore used in trains and on platforms. This applies “to all trains that come from Switzerland and enter France,” said the official.
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Special agreement allows for shuttle transportation
In the case of returns to Austria or Germany, the so-called Dublin procedure comes into play, which is used after a two-day stay in Switzerland. Most of the migrants have already moved on.
France and Switzerland have therefore concluded a special readmission agreement, which has made the return procedure much easier and means that a waiting period of two days does not have to be observed. In fact, France would have used it a few times, as Tabea Rüdin, spokeswoman for the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (BAZG), confirmed to the “Basler Zeitung”.
However, the French are overwhelmed with the controls. Therefore, “only a few migrants” are picked up and sent back to Switzerland, as Director of the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security, Christian Bock, explains.
Even when migrants are picked up by the French border guards and transported back, they are often not detained for long by their Swiss colleagues. So far, no criticism of this practice has come from France, as the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) confirmed when asked by the Sunday newspaper.