Marc Lies continues facing backlash after attributing a general decline in law and order in Luxembourg to failed immigration policies, with politicians pointing out the conflicting nature of these remarks and Lies' role as president of the Chamber's integration commission.

Marc Lies, the Hesperange Mayor and MP of the Christian Social People's Party (CSV), continues to be in the spotlight after having implied in a social media comment that failed immigration policies are to blame for a general deterioration of law and order in the Grand Duchy and the recent beheading of chickens in his home town in particular. After the CSV leadership held a clarifying conversation with Lies and distanced itself from the MP's remarks, other politicians are now reacting to the incident.

"I don't exactly see how these remarks are problematic", says Fred Keup, MP and president of the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR), while criticising that there is more focus on the form rather than the content of Lies' statement. In conversation with RTL, he also argued that complex questions need to be answered, including whether former Foreign and Immigration Minister Jean Asselborn pursued an open-border agenda, whether this in return increased crime, and which role left-wing politicians and the media played in this. Keup concluded that it is again the usual suspects who are complaining after hearing an opinion that does not reflect their own.

Taina Bofferding of the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP) observed that it was rather surprising and shocking to hear such remarks from a CSV rather than an ADR politician. After all, Lies is not new in politics and should know better regarding how best to communicate, she noted, further expressing her belief that Lies has consciously conflated questions of safety with refugee and migration policies.

The Greens' Sam Tanson underlined that refugees and migrants are often wrongly suspected of criminal activities despite being vulnerable themselves, which she says helps propagate negative stereotypes, hate, and racism. Tanson believes that the level of discourse in Luxembourg is increasingly lacking respect, most notably among "elected representatives of the people".

MP Sven Clement of the Pirate Party made a similar observation in conversation with RTL: "There is a stark discursive shift to the right. One could almost get the impression that Mr Lies wants to overtake the ADR on the right-hand side." Also problematic, according to Clement, is that Lies is president of the Chamber's integration commission, which the Pirate MP sees as being in direct conflict with Lies' discriminatory remarks.

Both Tanson and Clement agree that in light of Lies' position on the commission in question, the CSV should have more clearly reprimanded its party member.