French minister in Senegal in bid to stem migration and fight insecurity in West Africa

Record ID: 83023

  • Title: French minister in Senegal in bid to stem migration and fight insecurity in West Africa
  • Date: 7th October 2016
  • Summary: CAZENEUVE AND KOUEDOU APPLAUDING AT END OF SONG CAZENEUVE TALKING TO CHILD VARIOUS OF CAZENEUVE VISITING A CLASSROOM VARIOUS OF CHILDREN LISTENING TO CAZENEUVE TALKING TO THEM CAZENEUVE TALKING TO THE CHILDREN
  • Embargoed: 22nd October 2016 19:24
  • Keywords: immigration security migrants Africa Senegal Cazeneuve
  • Location: DAKAR, SENEGAL
  • City: DAKAR, SENEGAL
  • Country: Senegal
  • Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA003530DFLZ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: As France struggles with a plan to disperse and rehouse some 9,000 migrants from a camp in Calais, the French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve visited Senegal on Friday (October 7) as part of a drive to repatriate migrants and stem the flow of new arrivals.
    He began his visit at a school in Dakar, funded by the French Office of Immigration and Integration, and set up by Georgette Kouedou. Kouedou studied in France and came back home because, she said, she wanted to contribute to the development of Senegal.
    These are the kinds of projects Cazeneuve hopes will encourage African migrants in France to return home and contribute to their domestic economies so as to end a vicious circle of poverty and flight.
    Cazeneuve says the best way to reduce the flow of economic migrants is to develop the countries they are fleeing from.
    Kouedou believes there are real opportunities in Senegal. But migrant numbers show fewer and fewer people in her home country share her view. More than 5,000 Senegalese took the dangerous trip through the Sahara desert and across the Mediterranean sea last year to go to Italy.
    By August this year that number had increased to about 6,000, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
    "To all those who want to go (to Europe) by their own means and without documentation I say "No. Stop". Because I think it means putting their lives in danger, already through the trip, and once they arrive there, the conditions are also very difficult for foreigners, and even as students conditions were very difficult abroad. So I think by staying in the country you can do many things," says Kouedou.
    Cazeneuve, who held a meeting with Senegal's interior minister, was also due to deliver a speech to announce new measures to fight radicalisation and increase stability in the region.
    He comes as public concern over a major influx of migrants has intensified in France and other European countries.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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