Europe's Schengen zone at risk after Paris attacks

[webfact]

Europe's Schengen zone at risk after Paris attacks



LONDON: -- In the wake of the attacks on Paris, Britain’s prime minister David Cameron has sent a message of solidarity to the people of France.

Cameron called those who carried out the attacks “brutal, callous murderers” and vowed that efforts would be stepped up to eradicate the threat from the group calling itself Islamic State.

“However strong we are, however much we prepare, we in the UK face the same threat,” said the prime minister. “That’s why we continue to encourage the public to remain vigilant and we will do all we can to support our police and intelligence agencies with the resources and the capabilities that they need.”

Several countries had already reestablished border controls because of the migrant crisis.

In the wake of the attacks, police in the German district of Saarland have introduced random checks at its border with France.

“We started first controls last night,” explained Juergen Glaub, Saarland federal police spokesman. “The situation is constantly being reevaluated and adjusted. We are in close cooperation with our French partners.”

French police have suspended the Schengen agreement and have now taken control of all crossing points with Italy where the Catholic Church will celebrate an extraordinary jubilee next month.

The Paris attacks have weakened support for Europe’s open-borders Schengen Zone.

In Germany, Bavaria’s prime minister said that border controls are now more necessary than ever.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-11-16

[BuaBS]

Good ! Get rid off the Schengen zone . Only the enemy is already within the countries.

[baboon]

Cameron's telling a cowed public to remain vigilant isn't going to be of much use given the risk of being branded racist or a bigot if making a report and are afraid, rightly or wrongly, of being prosecuted themselves. As a result, many people have now simply given up. No doubt police funding will be cut in next year's budget too...

Edited November 16, 2015 by baboon

[godden]

There are times i think Cameron is a bigger threat than ISIS.

[OMGImInPattaya]

Agree...it's a little late for all this...the Europeans have already let the enemy settle amongst them...witness most of the Paris attackers appear to be French citizens. And what does the church jubilee have to do with any of this?

[bangon04]

"French police have suspended the Schengen agreement and have now taken control of all crossing points with Italy where the Catholic Church will celebrate an extraordinary jubilee next month."

Non-Sequitur of the month award?

[Enoon]

Agree...it's a little late for all this...the Europeans have already let the enemy settle amongst them...witness most of the Paris attackers appear to be French citizens. And what does the church jubilee have to do with any of this?

France has had a long and intimate relationship with Muslims, North African ones in particular. They didn't just "let the enemy settle". Indeed they were anything but "the enemy", read on:

Shortly after Louis Philippe's constitutional monarchy was overthrown in the revolution of 1848, the new government of the Second Republic ended Algeria's status as a colony and declared in the 1848 Constitution the occupied lands an integral part of France. Three civil territories—Alger, Oran, and Constantine—were organized as French departements (local administrative units) under a civilian government. This made them a part of France proper as opposed to a colony.

Harki (adjective from the Arabic harka, standard Arabic haraka حركة, "war party" or "movement", i.e., a group of volunteers, especially soldiers) is the generic term for Muslim Algerian loyalists who served as Auxiliaries in the French Army during the Algerian War from 1954 to 1962. The phrase sometimes is applied to all Algerian Muslims who supported the French presence in Algeria during this war.

In France, the term is used to designate the Franco-musulmans rapatriés ("repatriated French Muslims") community living in the country since 1962, and its metropolitan-born descendants. In this sense, the term Harki now refers to a distinct ethnocultural group, i.e. French Muslims of Algerian Descent, distinct from other French of Algerian origin or Algerians living in France.

As of 2012, the Harkis and their descendants represent around 800,000 people in France.^[1]

President Jacques Chirac established 25 September 2001 as the Day of National Recognition for the Harkis. On 14 April 2012, President Nicolas Sarkozy recognized France's "historical responsibility" in abandoning Harki Algerian veterans at the time of the war.["

Because this is what happened to the abandoned:

As feared, there were widespread reprisals against Harkis who remained in Algeria. It is estimated that at least 30,000 and possibly as many as 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the National Liberation Front (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria, sometimes in circumstances of extreme cruelty.^[8][9] In his history, A Savage War Of Peace, Alistair Horne writes:^[10]

"Hundreds died when put to work clearing the minefields along the Morice Line, or were shot out of hand. Others were tortured atrociously; army veterans were made to dig their own tombs, then swallow their decorations before being killed; they were burned alive, or castrated, or dragged behind trucks, or cut to pieces and their flesh fed to dogs. Many were put to death with their entire families, including young children."

Funny old world, isn't it?

Edited November 16, 2015 by Enoon

[Steely Dan]

Of course Schengen is dead, just as I predicted. Even Sweden has started border checks after a gap of twenty years.

[Asheron]

Enoon: and let's not forget the Franco-Ottoman alliance that lasted two and half centuries until Napoleon.

But maybe something good will actually come from this horrible terrorist attack on Paris... Schengen will actually be abolished and border checks will once again be reality for Europe. It's just absurd that anyone can basicly walk from southern tip of Portugal to northern most tip of Finland without anyone checking who the hell you are while passing borders.

[h90]

Good ! Get rid off the Schengen zone . Only the enemy is already within the countries.

Schengen would have worked if all the laws would have been followed......If they would make immigration of Arab Muslim men as difficult as Thai Buddhist women there would be no problem at all.

If the separate countries don't protect their borders the same as they don't protect the Schengen boarders it won't help.

[OMGImInPattaya]

Good ! Get rid off the Schengen zone . Only the enemy is already within the countries.

Schengen would have worked if all the laws would have been followed......If they would make immigration of Arab Muslim men as difficult as Thai Buddhist women there would be no problem at all.

If the separate countries don't protect their borders the same as they don't protect the Schengen boarders it won't help.

Schengen came into effect around 1995 (treaty itself was signed a decade earlier) and the world was a different place back then...the ideas encapsulated in the treaty are way-pre-9/11. It might have worked if, as you say, the provisions of the treaty were strictly adhered too (no internal borders but the periphery states to strictly control the EU border zones. Unfortunately, the boundary states, particularly in the south and east, tend to be the poorer and administratively weaker states, especially so with EU enlargement over time, and so the borders have become more and more porous, leading to a complete breakdown this year with the migrant crisis. Schengen may have been a good idea in its time but perhaps it was biting off more than the collective EU could chew.

[PattayaPhom]

And muslim agencies around the World are condemning the French as they havnt reached out enough and tried to integrate these communities with the rest of France...<deleted> me, not only do Europeans have to pay for them but are also to blame for them not integrating.

[h90]

Good ! Get rid off the Schengen zone . Only the enemy is already within the countries.

Schengen would have worked if all the laws would have been followed......If they would make immigration of Arab Muslim men as difficult as Thai Buddhist women there would be no problem at all.

If the separate countries don't protect their borders the same as they don't protect the Schengen boarders it won't help.

Schengen came into effect around 1995 (treaty itself was signed a decade earlier) and the world was a different place back then...the ideas encapsulated in the treaty are way-pre-9/11. It might have worked if, as you say, the provisions of the treaty were strictly adhered too (no internal borders but the periphery states to strictly control the EU border zones. Unfortunately, the boundary states, particularly in the south and east, tend to be the poorer and administratively weaker states, especially so with EU enlargement over time, and so the borders have become more and more porous, leading to a complete breakdown this year with the migrant crisis. Schengen may have been a good idea in its time but perhaps it was biting off more than the collective EU could chew.

Well East: Hungary is the only one which takes it serious.....strictly enforced it would be well...but no one is taken it serious, if you let migrants just walk into Slovenia, transport them to Austria, transport them to Germany all without checking any identity, than clearly it is not Schengen, it is the acting politicians that should forced out.

Not it is that far that I would applaud military coups to get rid of them.