'Pure political theatre': Ceuta migrant crisis 'used politically' to portray Europe as under attack

Summary

Stuart Norval is pleased to welcome Camille Le Coz, Director at Migration Policy Institute Europe. Le Coz offers a nuanced interpretation of the recent events in Ceuta that challenges the dominant political narratives emerging across Europe. She shifts attention away from emotionally charged images toward the structural forces shaping migration: demographic pressures in North Africa, labour shortages in Europe, the role of smuggling networks amplified by social media, and the enduring tendency of migration crises to become instruments of domestic political competition. In doing so, she offers a reminder that Europe's migration debate is often driven less by the movement of people itself than by competing political narratives about what those movements represent.