Sarkozy - tough talk, tough action on immigrants

French Interior Minister Mr Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, steered the new French Immigration Bill to it's introduction. The bill, which must also be passed by the French Senate, offers residence permits to highly qualified newcomers from outside the European Union and also will lead to deporting more immigrants.The Bill still requires Senate approval.He has set a target of 25,000 deportations by the end of 2006 but said he hoped to exceed this.

Msr Sarkozy is currently visiting Mali wher he is not welcome as planes carrying deportees arrive in Mali every day, some carrying 70 people expelled from France.Many of the Malians living in France come from the western region of Kayes, while Gao is at a key staging post on the migration route from West Africa across the Sahara desert to Morocco and then Europe.

The Bill's main points include ;
1.Only the qualified get "skills and talents" residency permit
2.Foreigners only allowed in to work, not live off benefits
3.Foreign spouses to wait longer for residence cards
4.Migrants must agree to learn French
5.Migrants must sign 'contract' respecting French way of life
6.Scraps law on workers getting citizenship after 10 years

In the capital of Mali, Bamoko, 100's of Malians have marched to protest against the visit of the hardline French Interior Minister holding banners reading "Sarkozy, neo-Nazi" and "Immediate halt to deportations.

Ahead of his arrival, more than 20 MPs said he should not visit Mali. Wednesday's (17/5/06) march to the French Embassy was organised by the Association of Malians Expelled from France, which is also called for a sit-in on Thursday in front of the hotel where Mr Sarkozy was staying.

He then travelled on to Cotonou in Benin to meet President Thomas Yayi Boni before giving a speech on France's Africa policy. The high-profile trip has been soured by African frustration over the immigration bill.Some of Benin's MP's demonstrated their opposition by boycotting a lunch hosted by Sarkozy, saying that they did not consider him "a friend of Africans."

Anti-racist and student activists organised a sit-in at the interior ministry: placards accused Sarkozy of racism, compared him to bird flu .Hundreds of people shouted: "Racist, out of our country" and "Go home," as riot police stood guard at the interior ministry in Cotonou.(see pic)

Undaunted Sarkozy said France had to build a "new, healthier, straightforward, balanced" relationship with Africa which had to be more trasnparent, "We have to get rid of these networks from another era, unofficial envoys with no other mandates than those they invent for themselves," he said.

"The normal operation of political and diplomatic institutions must prevail over the unofficial circuits which did so much harm in the past."

The Immigration bill is not without critics in France

Socialist MP Serge Blisko said it amounted to "the organised pillaging of brains", and the French anti-racism organisation SOS Racisme has called it "dangerous".

Sarkozy has ordered local police to round up the youngsters and their families and ensure they are expelled after the school term finishes at the end of June. Even those who are French-born will not be spared.

Pierre Labeyrie, a Green party councillor in Toulouse, said he would have no hesitation in breaking the law. "We will give these people our support, our protection. "We will not denounce them to the police."

A recently formed protest group, the Réseau Education sans Frontières (Education Without Borders), claims to have more than 24,000 signatures protesting against such expulsions.... which are enormously popular with the right wing of the electorate which Sarkozy is trying to attract ahead of the Presidential elections ...building on his actions whivch set off the November riots in the Paris banlieus.