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Mr Macron, a former investment banker, who is Marine Le Pen's rival in the race to become president, made his views known during a climate change debate. He told the crowd: “We have entered a world of great migrations and we will have more and more of it.” “In the coming decades we will have migrations from geopolitical conflicts that will continue to play, and we will have climate migrations because the planet is in a state of deep imbalance,” he said.

Getty Emmanuel Macron says that Europe “must get used to mass immigration”

European countries including Italy, France, Sweden and Germany have seen unprecedented levels of immigration — both legal and illegal over the past five years. The BBC estimates that more than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015. Most arrived by sea but some came by land. The majority of migrants to the EU countries came from Syria. They were followed by people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Pakistan, Eritrea, Nigeria, Iran and Ukraine.

Getty More than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015 by boat and land

Meanwhile, Germany received the highest number of new asylum applications in 2015, with more than 476,000. Mr Macron told the audience at the event for the Science and Future magazine that he thought that France’s failure to tackle climate change had also been a factor in the reasons for migration. “France will not be able to stem it, and Europe will be affected immediately. We will see a migratory phenomenon far greater than what we have seen [with migrants from] Syria.”

Getty Macron, an independent politician said that France must show solidarity to refugees

Getty Macron and rival rival Marine Le Pen have two different views on migrants