Tea at Trianon: French Report: Illegal Immigration Costs €1.8 Billion Annually

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

French Report: Illegal Immigration Costs €1.8 Billion Annually

From The European Conservative:

The president of France’s supreme audit institution admits to deliberately delaying the release of a report on illegal immigration costs until after the parliamentary debate—and vote—on immigration law. The report, just released by the Cour des Comptes, shows the exorbitant sum of €1.8 billion charged to illegal immigration in 2023.

Published on Thursday, January 4th, the report is a harsh indictment of government policy, in particular the actions of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who boasts of having taken a tough stance on managing illegal immigrants. Darmanin claims to have introduced an effective policy for expelling illegal immigrants and says the expulsion rate of delinquent foreigners is up by 30%.

The first president of the Court, former socialist minister Pierre Moscovici, would normally have published the report in question on December 13th—two days after the vote on the motion to reject the first version of the immigration law—but preferred to remain temporarily silent on a document that is damning for the government. He defended himself by explaining that he did not want “this publication to interfere in any way with the political debate.”

The positive figures put forward by the Ministry are only a small part of a much bleaker overall picture. None of the aspects subjected to the rigorous analysis of the Court advisers is satisfactory. (Read more.)