France’s talk on border control hypocritical: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Kenneth Fero, a filmmaker and lecturer at Coventry University in London, about French Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ call on European leaders to take urgent action to control the continent’s external borders.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you feel about the call to control external borders?

Fero: I think it is hypocritical that the French are talking about controlling borders when they did not recognize the borders of Syria, they did not recognize the borders of Libya. French military has been involved in Syria since colonial times and so for them to now start asking people to recognize borders, to repel refugees, is I think absolutely shocking.

What the French should be doing and the British and Europeans is start to pull back from the invasions, pull back from the fact that they do not recognize the borders and the sovereignty of Iraq. They did not recognize the sovereignty of Iraq and the borders of Iraq when they invaded in 2003 and in many times before that.

So I think it is just absolute hypocrisy for the Europeans and French and the British to be talking now about, ‘well we need to have our borders up,’ to keep people out when they do not recognize the borders of the countries that they are creating havoc in.

Press TV: And isn’t it true that the facade of the EU being as a dreamland is also in a sense collapsing in some people’s eyes, because obviously we now have the Brits who want major changes to it and the French obviously saying we will not give such changes at any price?

Fero: Well I think Europe is a dreamland but it is not dreamland for people. It is a dreamland for business people. It is the dreamland for Capitalism. That is where the dreamland is in terms of the work… That has never been as easy as it has been to move money around.

So I think the European Union is more a monetary union rather than a cultural one and certainly not a political one and I think what we have to think about in terms of France for example we are seeing people even today hundreds of people drowning trying to get into Europe once again. I mean in 1961 two hundred Algerians drowned in the River Seine in the center of Paris. It’s capital city of France. They were drowned when they were attacked by police officers and fascist elements and yet these 200 Algerians are not talked about and yet they drowned in the capital city; in Paris.

So I think people have to look at the history of Paris, the history of France, the history of their involvement in Syria and the Middle East and then take that into account when they are asking questions around refugees and about European unity today.

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