Brice Hortefeux (born 11 May 1958) is a conservative
French politician
The politics of France take place with the framework of a semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the French Fifth Republic. The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic". ...
. He was
Minister of the Interior
An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
, Overseas Territories and Territorial collectivities. He was previously Minister for Labour, Labour Relations, the Family, Solidarity and Urban Affairs and Minister-Delegate for Local Government at the Ministry of the Interior and was a
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
Auvergne
Auvergne (; ; oc, label= Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Au ...
Auvergne
Auvergne (; ; oc, label= Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Au ...
: Since 1992. Reelected in 1998, 2004, 2010.
* Prefect, given responsibility for a government public service mission (1995)
* Special adviser in the office of the President of the Senate (1998–1999)
* Head of office of the Minister for the Budget and Communications and government spokesman (1993–1995)
Career in government
*Minister of the Interior, Overseas, Local Authorities and Immigration : 2010–2011.
*Minister of the Interior, Overseas and Local authorities : 2009–2010.
*Minister of Labor, Family and Social Affairs, Solidarity and the City : January–June 2009.
*Minister for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Development Solidarity : 2007–2009.
*Minister of Territorial collectivities : 2005–2007.
Hortefeux is considered one of the most loyal political allies, and personal friend, of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He is the godfather of one of Nicolas Sarkozy's sons.
On 18 May 2007, he was appointed as the first Minister of Immigration, Integration,
National Identity
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
and Cooperative Development in the government of Prime Minister
François Fillon
François Charles Armand Fillon (; born 4 March 1954) is a retired French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 2007 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy. He was the nominee of the Republicans (previously known as the Union ...
. As such he has boosted the numbers of illegal immigrants forcibly repatriated from France, extended the network of detention centres (established also outside the larger conurbations in smaller cities such as Blois) and modified the rights of individuals and organizations which visit them.
He is in favor of controls on immigration. He was the promoter of a law that toughens conditions of political
asylum
Asylum may refer to:
Types of asylum
* Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome
* Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute
* Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea
...
in France. He believes that France has a right to expel or welcome immigrants on a discretionary basis, citing as evidence the high unemployment and criminality rates of foreigners. He also points to the geographical concentration of foreigners in a small number of towns as evidence that they are not integrated in the country. As he declared in the newspaper '' Le Parisien'' on 8 November 2007:
"France has the right to choose which immigrants it can accommodate... Let's muster the courage to face our problems! Do you find it normal that 60% of immigrants are concentrated in only 3 of our 22 regions? That the unemployment rate of these people is 22% and that their children are dropping out of school? No, we will not accept this.".''Le Parisien'', 8 octobre 2007
On M6's TV show ''Capital'', when asked if there were illegal immigrants in France, he replied: "If you dream of a country where there are only honest and clean citizens... In reality, it's a constant struggle."
In August 2010 following an earlier fatal incident involving travellers and gendarmerie at Thésée, near St. Aignan, Loir et Cher, Hortefeux has vigorously pursued a policy of destroying illegal travellers' camps and imposing conditions for voluntary repatriations of Roma (or gypsies) to Romania and Bulgaria, a considerable number of which are in progress. A circular emanating from his office (chief of staff : Michel Bart) on 5 August 2010, specifically mentioning an ethnic criterion for these deportations provoked the ire of ministerial colleagues such as Éric Besson and the European commissioner,
Viviane Reding
Viviane Adélaïde Reding (born 27 April 1951) is a Luxembourgish politician and a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Luxembourg. She is a member of the Christian Social People's Party, part of the European People's Party. She p ...
. An eirenic exchange with Cardinal
André Vingt-Trois
André Armand Vingt-Trois (; born 7 November 1942) is a French cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Paris from 2005 to 2017, having previously served as Archbishop of Tours from 1999 to 2005. He was elevated to the cardi ...
, the President of the French Bishops' Conference, representing contrasting reactions within the Catholic community, also ensued.
Member of the European Parliament
Hortefeux served as a
Member of European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
from 1999 to 2005 and again from 2011. He was first elected in 1999 and later reelected in 2004 and 2009. As member of the
Union for a Popular Movement
The Union for a Popular Movement (french: link=no, Union pour un mouvement populaire, ; UMP, ) was a centre-right List of political parties in France, political party in France that was one of the two major party, major contemporary political pa ...
, he was part of the European People's Party group. During his time at the European Parliament, he sat on the
Committee on International Trade The Committee on International Trade (INTA) is a committee of the European Parliament. Its current chair, elected on 10 July 2019, is Bernd Lange.Committee on Budgets and was a member of the delegation for relations with the
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
countries and the
Arab Maghreb Union
The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) or simply the Maghreb Union (MU) ( ar, اتحاد المغرب العربي ', french: Union du Maghreb Arabe) is a political union and economic union trade agreement aiming for economic and future political unity am ...
.
As part of a reorganization of the UMP's leadership under their chairman
Jean-François Copé
Jean-François Copé (; born 5 May 1964) is a French politician serving as Mayor of Meaux since 1995 with an interruption from 2002 to 2005. He was Government Spokesman between 2002 and 2007, when assumed other tenures in the government—inclu ...
in January 2013, Hortefeux became – alongside
Christian Estrosi
Christian Paul Gilbert Estrosi (born 1 July 1955) is a French sportsman and politician who has served as Mayor of Nice since 2017, previously holding the office from 2008 to 2016. A former professional motorcyclist, he served as a government m ...
Gérard Longuet
Gérard Longuet (; born 24 February 1946 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French conservative politician who has served as a member of the Senate from 2001 to 2011 and again since 2012, representing Meuse. He served as Minister of ...
– one of the party’s six vice-presidents.
Ahead of the 2022 presidential elections, Hortefeux publicly declared his support for
Valérie Pécresse
Valérie Pécresse (; born Roux, 14 July 1967) is a French politician who has served as President of the Regional Council of Île-de-France since 2015. A member of The Republicans (LR), she previously served as Minister of Higher Education and ...
as the Republicans’ candidate and joined her campaign team as special adviser on institutional reform.
Political positions
Hortefeux is a supporter of immigrant repatriation from France. He has supported and incentivised
voluntary return
Voluntary return or voluntary repatriation is usually the return of an illegal immigrant or over-stayer, a rejected asylum seeker, a refugee or displaced person, or an unaccompanied minor; sometimes it is the emigration of a second-generation ...
, in his role as Immigration Minister of France, for immigrant families. In 2007, enhancing the offer to €6,000 per family to leave the country, he claimed that the French government "must increase this measure to help voluntary return".
Controversy
On 10 September 2009, ''
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' disclosed a video showing Hortefeux at the UMP Summer School in Seignosse, France, on Saturday, 5 September 2009. As he posed for a photograph with a young man of
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
origin, the following conversation can be heard (translation):
Female voice – He is Catholic, he eats
pork
Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE.
Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved; ...
and
drinks
A drink or beverage is a liquid intended for human consumption. In addition to their basic function of satisfying thirst, drinks play important roles in human culture. Common types of drinks include plain drinking water, milk, juice, smoothies a ...
beer!
Hortefeux – Oh really? Well, he does not match the prototype at all!
Female voice – He is one of us... he is our little Arab.
Hortefeux – We always need one! When there is only one, it's okay. It's when there are many that problems begin.
In June 2010, a French court found Hortefeux guilty of a racial insult, and fined him 750 euros with an order to donate 2,000 euros to an anti-racism group. Hortefeux' lawyer said that they would appeal the ruling.
2010 cargo plane bomb plot
On 4 November 2010, Hortefeux said that one of the two bombs in the
2010 cargo plane bomb plot
On October 29, 2010, two packages, each containing a bomb consisting of plastic explosives and a detonating mechanism, were found on separate cargo planes. The bombs were discovered as a result of intelligence received from Saudi Arabia's securi ...
was defused just 17 minutes before it was set to explode.
See also
*
Alleged Libyan interference in the 2007 French elections
Libya allegedly bankrolled the presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy with up to €50 million in pay-outs. Sarkozy has denied wrongdoing and rejected suggestions he was a Libyan agent of influence during his tenure as president of France. He h ...