On Friday, the public prosecutor's office of the specialised interregional court (Jirs) in Nancy announced the indictment of four men suspected of having smuggled 300 migrants from Turkey into the Schengen area since 2022.

From Monday to Tuesday, investigators from the Metz branch of the Office for the Fight against Illicit Trafficking of Migrants (OLTIM) arrested seven people on suspicion of running an "illegal immigration network" that facilitated the movement of migrants from Turkey to France, Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium.

Following their detention, four men were charged, with three placed in pre-trial detention and the fourth placed under judicial supervision. The investigation revealed that the migrants had to pay smugglers between €3,500 and €7,000 to enter the Schengen area.

Departing from Turkey, the migrants were reportedly driven to Serbia were they received falsified documents, the public prosecutor's office shared in a statement. "The network had around fifty vehicles at its disposal, allowing the illegal migrants to travel to Schengen countries using forged documents."

French Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau expressed his intention of taking "rigorous measures" to "bring immigration under control." He proposed ideas such as using transit countries to send back individuals who cannot be repatriated to their country of origin, extending detention periods to 210 days, and tightening conditions for the regularisation of undocumented migrants.