Banned Conference in Paris: The Immigration Debate Went Ahead Anyway – on the Radio and Online

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French authorities banned a conference organized by the Polémia think tank and devoted to halting immigration and sending back illegal and undesirable foreigners. An administrative court upheld the ban, even though the Ordo Iuris Institute had submitted a legal opinion demonstrating its incompatibility with international and European standards. The organizers nevertheless moved the debates to the airwaves of Radio Courtoisie and to the internet. One of the discussions was devoted to a report on the renationalization of migration policies, presented by Olivier Bault, director of the Ordo Iuris Communications Center.

Ban issued less than two days before the conference

The conference “Remigration: Let’s Open the Debate” was to be held on October 31 in Le Plessis-Robinson, near Paris. Between 700 and 800 people had bought tickets. Speakers had come from various European countries, as well as from across the Atlantic. In its announcement of the event, the Ordo Iuris Institute stated that its representatives would present proposals there for states to regain control over migration policy.

On October 29, the prefect of the Hauts-de-Seine department, acting on the orders of the interior minister, banned the conference. Polémia challenged the order before the Administrative Court of Cergy-Pontoise under the urgent procedure. On October 30, a three-judge panel upheld the ban. It cited not only the risk of disturbances to public order from counter-demonstrations announced by the far left, but also the so-called intangible public order: it found that the very subject of the meeting violated human dignity.

“This is an ideological definition of what may and may not be said,” Jean-Yves Le Gallou, president of Polémia and a former member of the European Parliament, commented on the air.

The Ordo Iuris opinion and the composition of the bench

The Ordo Iuris Institute prepared a legal opinion, which was submitted to the court. In it, Ordo Iuris demonstrated that the ban violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and European Union law. The court’s order did not address these arguments. The court relied exclusively on French law.

Bertrand Saint-Germain, who holds a doctorate in law and is director of research at the Observatoire des décisions de justice, pointed out on Radio Courtoisie that the names of the judges appeared right after the order was issued and were then quickly removed. One member of the panel, Judge Jérémy Sitbon, had signed an “Appeal to the Jews of France” a few weeks earlier. A chapter entitled “The Fascization of France” states that “the far right – Le Pen, Bardella – claims to protect us; in reality, it nurtures the deep roots of French antisemitism,” while the liberal bloc “from Sarkozy to Hollande and Macron” “trivializes the far right by adopting its racist discourse” and “serves as a stepping stone for the fascists.” The signature reads: “we, left-wing Jewish men and women.” According to Bertrand Saint-Germain, this raises a serious problem of the court’s objective impartiality.

A full day of debates on air and online

Thanks to the experience and quick reaction of the organizers, who are accustomed to operating under such conditions, the debates took place anyway – and in an even more public format. Radio Courtoisie broadcast them from 10 a.m. until the evening on terrestrial frequencies, while simultaneously streaming them in two parallel broadcasts on YouTube. According to the organizers’ estimates, more than 100,000 people watched them. It is not known how many listeners followed the program on the radio.

The discussions covered, among other topics, the moral foundations of a policy of sending foreigners back (with Belgian historian David Engels and Antoine Dresse of the Iliade Institute), the American experience (a former head of ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, took part), action at the local level (with municipal councilor Jean-Eudes Gannat), anti-white racism (François Bousquet), the legal framework, and the role of women and the family. The women’s debate featured Alice Cordier, president of the Némésis collective, and Aliette Espieux, longtime spokeswoman for the French March for Life. Former senator Stéphane Ravier and Hilaire Bouyé, president of Génération Zemmour, the youth wing of the Reconquête party, also spoke. A recording of a speech by Éric Zemmour was played.

Martin Sellner, an Austrian identitarian activist, spoke remotely. French authorities detained him on October 29 at Beauvais airport and expelled him from the country. The host reminded listeners on air that Sellner “had been subjected to remigration.” The paradox is that an Austrian citizen could be expelled on the spot, even though France is unable to enforce the vast majority of decisions ordering illegal foreigners to leave its territory.

Ordo Iuris: without changes to EU law, there is no turning off the tap

Olivier Bault discussed the legal obstacles to an effective migration policy with Michel Aubouin, honorary prefect and former director general for foreigners at the French Interior Ministry, and with Bertrand Saint-Germain. He presented the Polish-Hungarian report “Taking Back Control from Brussels: The Renationalization of EU Migration and Asylum Policies”, prepared by Hungary’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium and the Migration Research Institute in cooperation with Ordo Iuris.

He pointed out that international and EU law prohibit turning back at the border persons who orally apply for asylum. He cited the example of Hungary: the CJEU first ordered the closure of the transit zones at the border and then challenged the requirement to submit asylum applications at embassies. In 2024, it imposed on Budapest a fine of €200 million plus €1 million per day, even though the European Commission had requested approximately €16,000 per day. “Under such conditions, there is no way to turn off the tap,” he stressed.

Olivier Bault also noted that the Family Reunification Directive, as interpreted by the CJEU, sets minimum standards below which states may not go. He recalled that in 2025, EU States issued a record 3.9 million first residence permits, and that more than a quarter of the permits issued in the EU concern family reunification. He noted that the new Return Regulation extends the maximum period of detention (compulsory placement in a closed facility) to 30 months, which still does not solve the problem. In the report, Ordo Iuris proposes that the detention of persons subject to removal could be of unlimited duration.

Dinner and the Ordo Iuris stand

In the evening, a dinner was held for the speakers and representatives of the invited organizations. It was attended by about 80 people, including politicians from various countries, among them the United States. Ordo Iuris, like the other organizations that were to have had stands at the conference, was able to present its publications. Olivier Bault and Nikodem Bernaciak presented the report on the renationalization of migration policies, the report “The Migration Pact and the Protection of the EU’s External Borders in 26 Questions and Answers” and a proposal for a thorough reform of the European Union. The publications attracted considerable interest.

The dinner opened with a speech by Renaud Camus, the author of the concept of the “great replacement” of populations, which until recently was excluded from public debate in France but today increasingly appears in the mainstream – and not only in France. Camus went further than any other participant. He argued that “the essence of colonization is the displacement of populations,” and that Europe should no longer speak of remigration but of “decolonization.” He recalled that most decolonization processes in Africa and Asia had taken place almost without violence. The position of Ordo Iuris is different: the removal of a foreigner should be determined by his or her legal status and conduct, not by origin.

“Poland does not have to reach a situation in which someone talks about the need for decolonization. Today we can still react, but we must watch closely what the government is doing,” says Olivier Bault. According to an analysis by Patryk Ignaszczak based on Eurostat data, in 2025 Poland issued 467,314 first residence permits, ranking third in the EU, behind Spain and Germany and ahead of Italy and France. Meanwhile, the Ordo Iuris report on Foreigners Integration Centers shows that the guidelines adopted by Donald Tusk’s Polish government on March 29, 2024, reject assimilation in favor of integration in which “the migrant influences the host society on equal terms.” The authors of the report point to Thierry Tuot’s 2013 French report as the reference point for the Tusk government’s guidelines and warn that Poland cannot follow in the footsteps of Western countries while ignoring the consequences of such integration models.

A ban contrary to international standards

French authorities did not manage to close off every space for debate. The ban nonetheless remains incompatible with the standards by which France is bound. As the Ordo Iuris opinion points out, any restriction on freedom of assembly, expression and association must be prescribed by law, serve one of the enumerated aims, be necessary in a democratic society and be non-discriminatory. The burden of demonstrating that these conditions are met rests with the state.

In its General Comment No. 37, the UN Human Rights Committee emphasizes that a ban on an assembly is a measure of last resort and that the authorities should remain neutral with regard to the content of the meeting. The hostility of counter-demonstrators does not justify a ban, and restrictions may not be applied to calls for changes to the law or to the constitution. Since its 1976 judgment in Handyside, the European Court of Human Rights has stressed that freedom of expression also covers ideas that “offend, shock or disturb.” The opinion also recalls that Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union lists democracy and pluralism among the Union’s values.

The opinion’s conclusions are unequivocal: the ban was based on an evaluation of views and on hypothetical risk, and it therefore fails to meet the requirements of necessity and proportionality. The conference should have taken place under police protection, and liability for any unlawful statements could have been enforced only after the fact.

Freedom of speech as a casualty of mass immigration

The Paris case shows that mass immigration leads to restrictions on freedom of speech. The authorities ban debate out of fear of social reactions, and even of the civil war that has been talked about in France for years. In September 2019, at the Convention of the Right, Éric Zemmour said: “We are living under a new German-Soviet pact.” He was referring to the alliance between liberal defenders of “human rights” and Islam, in which the only enemy left to defeat had become the “white heterosexual Catholic male.” President Emmanuel Macron then stated that such things must not be said because they could lead to civil war. Zemmour himself was convicted over that speech. Rather than solving the problem that gives rise to such fears, the authorities prefer to silence those who talk about it.

See also:

• Lisbon: How to Take Back Control of Migration Policy? Packed Auditorium for the Presentation of a Polish-Hungarian Report
• A Sentence for Opposing Mass Migration in Poland. Ordo Iuris Files an Appeal in the Case of Oliwia Olejniczak
• A Young Pregnant Mother Has Stood Trial. Soon Any of Us Could Fall Victim to Censorship
• The End of Deportation Tourism? European Parliament Backs Tougher Migration Policy
• Taking Back Control from Brussels: How EU Member States Can Reclaim Migration Policy Now

Source of cover photo: iStock