Six years ago, in 2020, French political leader Marine Le Pen described the Migrant Pact, which was then in the planning stages, as the “suicide of Europe.” She said it would bring 60 to 70 million new migrants to Europe, as Remix News reported at the time.
Europe is about to find out just how prophetic its critics have been. On June 12, the highly contested EU Migration Pact officially came into force, instantly triggering a sharp political divide across the continent.
Brussels is already signaling a hardline approach toward resistance; the bloc’s own EU Migration Commissioner recently admitted that the Union is preparing a “crackdown” on member states that refuse to comply with the new relocation directives.
At the heart of the controversy is the pact’s mandatory migrant quotas, framed by Brussels as “burden-sharing.” In practice, critics argue this distribution system allows nations like Germany and France a convenient mechanism to offload asylum seekers onto Central and Eastern European nations – such as Poland and Hungary – which have historically maintained strict anti-refugee stances.
Europe’s anti-immigration politicians are already responding to what they say is a law that will bring disaster to Europe. Le Pen, six years later, is calling for a “constitutional referendum on immigration.”
“Tomorrow, the Migration Pact will enter into force. It will require the States of the European Union to welcome migrants, under penalty of fines. When we come to power, we will propose to the French a constitutional referendum on immigration, the only means to regain control of our migration policy,” she wrote on X.
Hellbound and Down 