Schengen is OVER: Left-wing French presidential candidate vows to slam shut borders
FORMER economy minister Arnaud Montebourg has vowed to renegotiate the controversial Schengen agreement on open borders if elected president next spring.
By ROMINA MCGUINNESS IN PARIS
Express.co.uk
Fri, Jan 6, 2017
The presidential candidate has demanded the return of national borders after it was found that Anis Amri, the suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack, had travelled through at least five European countries, including France, before being shot dead by police in Milan, Italy.
Mr Montebourg, who will be taking part in the upcoming Socialist presidential primary, told BFMTV the Schengen rules had to be “reviewed” in light of the ongoing threats to France by Islamist terrorist groups.
The presidential hopeful said that the Berlin attacker’s ‘easy’ journey across Europe – he managed to cross multiple borders without detection – had cast a harsh light on the EU’s open-border policy, which enables border free-travel in much of the EU.
Mr Montebourg added that a renegotiation of the Schengen rules had become “inevitable” now that the country was teeming with would-be jihadists and had become a prime target for ISIS terrorists.
He said: “The convention implementing the Schengen agreement was signed in 1990, at a time when the terror threat was relatively low and when the EU was ‘at peace’. But times have changed, and the terror threat has reached unprecedented heights.”
The hardline leftist said France had to regain control of its borders, before adding the EU could not be the “sole authoritative voice” when it came to internal border controls.
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