Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Paris and other major French cities on Sunday to demand the repeal of a new immigration law.
In the French capital, thousands of protesters defied the cold, with organizers putting the number at 25,000 and police estimating it at 7,700. Many undocumented migrants marched at the front of the procession.
“We are clearly and simply demanding the repeal of the law,” said Mariama Sidibé, a spokesperson for a group of undocumented migrants in Paris. “We came to France to work. We are not criminals.”
More than 400 groups, associations, unions, and political parties called for the protests, rejecting a text that they say “adopts many of the ideas of the far right.”
“According to the authorities, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin tells us that this text will be necessary to protect us from the far right,” said Marc Secom, a former public transportation mechanic who participated in a march in Marseille, southern France, with 2,500 other protesters. “But to exclude Marine Le Pen (the leader of the far right), he is implementing Marine Le Pen’s program. This is madness.”
The parliament adopted the text on December 19, 2023. It reduces social benefits for foreigners, sets quotas for immigration, revises the law on automatic citizenship at birth in France, and reinstates the criminalization of illegal residence.
