Racist Remarks, Financial Incentives For Voluntary Deportation

At a time when warnings against immigrants are increasing from anti-racism and xenophobia groups in France, speeches from French officials reek of racism, calling on immigrants to leave France, as France is no longer willing to accept them. While these calls contain racist language, they are laced with financial incentives to motivate them to leave.

Examples of these racist statements were made by Alexandre Brugère, a senior French official and the prefect of Hauts-de-Seine. He visited illegal immigrants incarcerated at the Nanterre remand centre to convince them to leave France of their own free will… with a strong speech. He said: “Gentlemen, you no longer have a place in France and you are not welcome. You can leave with dignity or by force,” he declared, for example, in front of dozens of inmates during a recent visit reported by Le Figaro.

The French official addressed, on Friday morning, 17 inmates who greeted him standing up, hands behind their backs, in the rather gloomy gymnasium of the Nanterre remand centre, according to a field report published by Le Figaro on Saturday, September 13.

This detention centre is receiving double its capacity, according to its director, Bruno Boujal. He stated that “the penitentiary facility with 1,320 inmates and 590 places, representing a prison density of 200%, 160 mattresses on the floor, and 180 triple cells,” indicating the unbearable situation of immigration detentions in France.

The French authorities adopt a policy of combating immigration, often abusing this policy, which confirms Paris’s denial of its obligations to the victims of French society. When migrants are useful to them, they cling to them, disregarding their country of origin’s need for them as a framework for which large sums of money were spent. As for the other category of migrant, they consider them a burden and seek to expel them back to their countries of origin, even if they are the product of their culture and sick environment.

In the case of Algeria, the prefect of Hauts-de-Seine said that since the beginning of this year (February 2025), deportation has ceased, despite Algerians allegedly constituting the largest number. This is due to the iron-fist policy adopted by Algeria in response to the recklessness of French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who attempted to violate all legal and diplomatic norms by illegally deporting some Algerian social media activists. This was behind Algeria’s refusal to accept any cases where consular procedures were not strictly observed.

To facilitate the deportation process, according to the same French official, financial incentives are offered to those to be deported to obtain voluntary deportation. These incentives include a sum of money given to them at the departure lounge, often in the form of a Western Union money transfer.

For example, if the order to leave French territory is less than one month old, the person receiving it will receive €1200, plus €600 if they have children. The older the deportation order, the lower the amount. They can also benefit from a reintegration program in their country of origin, which allows them to receive additional aid from France, ranging in value from €1000 to €7000, depending on the nature of each deportee’s project, in cooperation with the French Office for Immigration and Integration.