The French President asserted during a press conference at the end of the Great National Debate on Thursday that the Schengen Area no longer works and that refoundation is indispensable.

After the three-month national debate initiative to appease protesters from the yellow vests movement, the French president held a press conference at the Elyse Palace, the first in his two years long presidency.

During his speech, Macron talked about the Schengen Zone and migration to the EU as well.

“First at the European level, we decided to have common borders; the famous Schengen area with the rules of the Dublin agreement. It does not work anymore.,” he said in front of tens of French and European journalists.

Macron also said that to him, the migration issue is the second biggest challenge for Europe, after climate. He insisted that Europe must profoundly refound its development policy and our migration policy.

“Europe, to which I believe, is a strong sovereign Europe… it is also a Europe that keeps its borders. Which protects them. It is a Europe that has a well-founded and common right of asylum and where responsibility goes with solidarity. It is on these bases that Schengen must be reshaped, even if it means a Schengen with fewer states. I do not want to have in the Schengen states that say I am (part of Schengen) when it comes to freedom of movement, but I do not want to be in when it comes to sharing the burden,” he said.

“This re-foundation is indispensable,” he said suggesting that some of the member countries who are not contributing in migration issues should be excluded from the area.

Previously in March, through an open letter addressed to the citizens of Europe and published in newspapers in all 28 EU countries, Macron has called for a “European Renaissance”, proposing Schengen reforms.

Macron is not the first person to suggest that the Schengen Area should shrink. In December last year the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has asserted that the Schengen Area should expel the Visegrad group – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – for showing no solidarity in the management of migration.

Whereas in December 2018, Michael called the alliance of the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban and the Italian Home Affairs Minister Matteo Salvini “schizophrenic and hypocritical” accusing them of instrumentalizing the migration dossier and to not resolving it.