Marine Le Pen: ‘Europe can’t cope with illegals’

MARINE LE PEN, the daughter of France’s longtime far-right leader who now heads his National Front party, said Europe doesn’t have the capacity to cope with illegal migrants from northern Africa after she toured a centre for illegal migrants on Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa.

Protesters yelled “racist” at Le Pen as she toured the island, where some 8,700 north Africans have fled unrest that has spread from Tunisia to Egypt and Libya since January.

Despite her party’s anti-immigrant politics, Le Pen insisted before her arrival the visit is aimed at gathering information, not at provocation. Le Pen, 42, who his stumping for next year’s French presidential race, has been trying to soften the National Front’s image as a xenophobic party.

“Europe does not have the capacity to welcome this number of illegal immigrants,” Le Pen said. She said the influx “is adding poverty to poverty, and disorder to disorder.”

She warned the migrants were arriving “in proportions that Italy can no longer handle.”

“In truth, we are about to witness a catastrophe,” she said.

Her visit comes as at least five new boats laden with migrants are headed to the island refuge. Most of the 8,700 north Africans who have arrived here since unrest in Tunisia started say they want to go to France, where many have family.

As Le Pen toured the centre, housing some 900 illegal migrants, dozens of protesters gathered outside brandishing signs in French and Italian with such slogans as “Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood, even for those without documents.”

“Madame Le Pen is a xenophobe, racist and neo-Fascist, and we don’t want her here,” said Giacomo Sterlazzo, one of the protesters.

The island’s mayor, however, was more welcoming, saying the emergency facing Lampedusa needed a European response.

“She is coming here to understand what is happening here. As far as racial hatred is concerned, everyone has his own personal style. Her father has his. She has hers. I am not going to judge her as a racist,” Mayor Bernardino De Rubeis said.

The mayor told reporters after that it was agreed for security reasons that Le Pen would not speak with any of the migrants “because we are in a precarious phase.”

Those who arrive in Lampedusa are sent to centres in southern Italy. During their stay in Lampedusa, each is given three meals and 10 cigarettes a day, plus a phone card to make calls.

Italian authorities were dispatching about 100 soldiers to stop the migrants wandering the island.