By Julio Godoy
PARIS, May 16 2003 (IPS)

At least the actors who play the role of asylum-seekers are privileged; their feet never touch the ground.

The new play ‘The Last Caravanserai’ by the Compagnie du Soleil (Company of the Sun) presents the story of those who would be refugees in France. One way or the other, they are never allowed to touch French soil.

Human rights groups and legal experts are now making the point the play makes. They are opposing a new immigration policy to keep asylum seekers out of France.

Proposals for the new policy have been presented to the French parliament. "The demands for asylum in France have risen three times over the last four years, and are now comparable in number to those in Germany and Britain," Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy said in parliament last week in support of new measures.

According to official figures, 80,000 people sought refuge in France in 2001. The cost of dealing with these cases has risen from 160 million dollars in 2000 to 290 million dollars last year, Sarkozy said.

But the National Council of Human Rights (CNCDH, after its French name), an independent body that advises the government on immigration and asylum, says Sarkozy’s proposals "reduce protection for refugees on the sole ground of savings."

In written objections presented this week to Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Rafarin, the group expressed its "deep apprehension about a project that aims to all but eliminate the right to asylum guaranteed by the French Constitution."

The CNCDH is critical of several aspects of the proposal. One is introduction of "subsidiary protection" for only a year to refugees who can prove that they face the death penalty, torture, other inhuman treatment, civil war or violence in their countries of origin.

The new law would deny asylum to refugees suspected to be a threat to security.

These new proposals are unacceptable because "French law should provide asylum under the Geneva Convention for refugees," the CNCDH said in its report. The CNCDH is also critical of making lists of "safe countries" whose citizens would face blanket denial of asylum.

Several legal experts and human rights groups say the government’s moves would give the police new powers and reduce the powers of the judiciary and independent institutions such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The French government wants to abolish "the guarantee the UNCHR has provided so far that France respect the rights of refugees and asylum seekers," says Michel Tubiana, president of the League of Human Rights. The government must "recognise this guarantee," Tubiana said at a press conference.

Dominique Barella, leader of the French Union of Magistrates, a leftist federation of judicial workers, called the proposal "a strike against justice." Sarkozy has a "police state vision of justice," Barella wrote in the daily Libération.

Barella condemned Sarkozy’s plans to introduce hearings at international airports in which police officers would have a stronger say than judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and humanitarian organisations.

"This move negates the quintessence of the due process of law," Barella wrote. "The proposal presented by Nicolas Sarkozy proves that he considers the justice department at best an auxiliary of the police, and at its worst an obstacle whose privileges must be curbed."

‘The Last Caravanserai’ is not, however, the most popular play in Paris. And most French people have raised no objection to the new proposals.

The government has as a result arranged several charter flights to force refugees out of France. Some of the expulsions have been questionable and in two cases led to the death of the asylum-seekers. But little public protest has resulted.

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