The EU’s top court ruled against France’s policy of turning away migrants at its borders, reports Politico.
The European Court of Justice announced on Thursday that those actions breached the EU’s rules on migrant returns.
The ruling comes as France closed its border to Italy amid a recent surge in migrant arrivals to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
France’s center-right home affairs minister Gérard Darmanin had on Monday vowed that “France will not take in a single migrant from Lampedusa” after meeting his Italian counterpart Matteo Piantedosi in Rome.
But EU rules compel member countries to initiate a formal procedure when expelling an irregular migrant, and give that person sufficient time to leave the country.
So-called pushbacks of migrants, or forcing a migrant directly back across a border, may only be carried out as a last resort, the judges in Luxembourg ruled.