Macron is being accused of pandering to the far-right in regards to refugees from the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.
Emmanuel Macron has been accused of pandering to the far right after he said France should have a robust plan to “anticipate and protect itself from a wave of migrants” from Afghanistan.
In a televised address, the French president said Europe must help those most threatened by the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and that “dealing with those fleeing the Taliban would need an organised and fair international effort”. “Europe alone cannot assume the consequences of the current situation,” he said.
The statement, which came hours after desperate Afghans trying to flee the country were filmed clinging to the wheels of a plane and falling to the ground, led to criticism the president was pandering to far-right voters in preparation for next year’s presidential election, in which he is expected to seek a second term in office.
Needless to say responses from several different sides of the political spectrum have not been kind to Macron.
Then basically every European leader is "pandering to the far right".
https://www.ft.com/content/de3b86cb-3a97-4181-9304-229d3ebc5bd5Europe sees risks in large numbers of Afghan refugeesEU officials scarred by 2015 Syrian crisis say mass intake of migrants ‘not a solution’However, when it comes to the risk of a large wave of Afghan migrants, Europe remains scarred by the memory of the Syrian refugee crisis and the bloc’s message is different.
As Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, put it on Tuesday: “We need to ensure that the political situation created in Afghanistan by the return of the Taliban does not lead to a large scale migratory movement towards Europe.”
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said on Monday that he had spoken to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, about “an initiative to develop without delay a robust, co-ordinated and united response” in Europe to counter illegal migration.
Armin Laschet, the Christian Democrats’ candidate to become Germany’s next chancellor, was more direct. “We should not send the signal that Germany can take in everyone in need,” he said on the same day of the Afghanistan situation.
Greece is also clear it does not want to see a mass wave of migrants. Migration minister Notis Mitarach said last week, before Taliban forces took Kabul, that “the EU is not ready and does not have the capacity to handle another major migration crisis”.
Merkel has said Germany intends to fly 10,000 people out of Afghanistan, and Spain has offered to act as a temporary hub, hosting around 400 Afghans that helped EU member states. But beyond that, most pledges have been left vague.
“We have begun to outline what will be the fundamental lines of co-operation at a European level,” Mario Draghi, the Italian prime minister, said late on Tuesday.
Even the UK, which has promised to take in 20,000 Afghan refugees, has said it will only take 5,000 refugees this year — prompting critics to ask about what would happen to the other 15,000 people in the meantime.
On Wednesday, Johansson crystallised the current state of EU thinking after a meeting with interior ministers.
“We should not wait until people arrive at the external borders of the European Union. This is not a solution,” she said, adding that the EU needed to work closely with transit countries and “step up our support as the situation evolves.”
Everyone's Trump today. Even Pr. Biden.
Two U.S. officials told Reuters that Biden was concerned about the political impact of large number of Afghan refugees flowing into the United States and preferred they be sent to third countries.
