Question 1164 — ministries and secretariats of state

Summary

Ms. Muriel Ressiguier questions the Minister of Action and Public Accounts about the multiplication of missions allocated to the French customs services while at the same time the constant reductions in staff numbers and budget cuts no longer allow this administration to fully and correctly exercise its initial missions: the control of goods entering the national territory, the collection of duties and taxes these, and the fight against counterfeiting and illicit trafficking (unapproved medicines, radioactive toys, adulterated wines, etc.). In addition, the closure of nearly 80 structures will mark the disappearance of local public services and excessive centralization does not meet users' expectations. This is the case in Gignac in Hérault, where the announced closure of the local recipe would be catastrophic in an important wine basin. If article 28-1 of the code of criminal procedure granted new judicial prerogatives to the customs administration, the current migration crisis and terrorist risks have encouraged its use in addition to, or even replacement of, the forces attached to the Ministry of the Interior or Defense. The disappearance of internal borders in the Schengen area, the standardization of customs codes and the creation European agencies have accentuated this transfer. For example, the Frontex agency, which in 2015 financed 70% of a French coast guard patrol vessel in the Mediterranean, imposed its mobilization at sea twice 30 days per year for operations to combat illegal immigration and rescue shipwrecked migrants by banning medical personnel on board. French customs do not have the human and technical means to carry out these rescues. It is unacceptable to allow, through negligence or inaction, to allow men and women who are driven into exile by poverty and war to drown. Following the agreement of March 26, 2016 signed between the European Union and Turkey, ratifying the return outside European borders of exiles who arrived illegally in Greece, customs officers were invited to volunteer to be assigned to surveillance of the territory and to lend a hand force on Greek police officers in escorting irregular migrants to Turkey. This operation, which was not originally a customs mission, is humanly and politically unworthy. French customs officers cannot be the adjustment variables of the austerity policies imposed by the EU on the Greek or French governments, which must, under duress, eliminate numerous civil servant jobs. This is why she asks him to reaffirm the fundamental fiscal and economic missions of French customs and to increase the staff and budgets necessary for the proper functioning of the 2018 finance bill.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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