Sarkozy's immigration tough talk backfires

[pampango]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hnSFckgi0cJqC0b5C3xYwW5MvmKg

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's tough talk on Gypsies and immigrants faced a fierce backlash Monday, drawing fire from the right, the left and the Catholic Church while failing to boost him in the polls. With two years to go before he seeks re-election and with his popularity at an all-time low, Sarkozy has this month attempted to recapture the political initiative with a populist and racially-tinged law and order message. A poll by Viavoice for the daily Liberation showed Sarkozy's approval rating dipping back one point to 34 percent, his lowest score since winning election in 2007 on the back of strong law and order promises.

The same pollsters found that a majority of voters, 55 percent, would like to see one of Sarkozy's left-wing opponents win the presidency. Political scientist Jean-Luc Parodi said that while Sarkozy had won some support from backers of the far-right National Front, he had "shocked" most centrist and left-wing sympathisers.

In the same edition of Le Monde, one-time justice minister and former close Sarkozy ally Rachida Dati appealed for France to respect immigrants and their descendants as full citizens. Her article alluded to recent statements by Sarkozy in which he blamed immigration for crime and vowed to strip some foreign-born criminals of French nationality.

A French anaesthetist and humanitarian aid worker, Anne-Marie Gouvet, meanwhile said she would not accept France's highest decoration, the Legion of Honour, in January because of the government's policy. "I cannot and will not be in any way be associated with a policy that has been implemented by your government towards the travellers (who are being) stigmatised for being about the only people responsible for the insecurity in this country which I dearly love," she wrote in a letter to Sarkozy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
France invites handful of ministers to 'immigration' summit

http://euobserver.com/22/30661

The list of invitees includes interior ministers from Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Greece. The Canadians have also been invited, while the Belgian EU presidency was added to the list as an afterthought. - interesting that Canada was invited to an EU immigration summit. What's up with that?

...it is likely to attract high amount of media attention after being publicised by Italy's interior minister Roberto Maroni. Praising French president Nicolas Sarkozy's initiative to crack down on illegal Roma, a policy that includes getting rid of their camps, Mr Maroni on Saturday said he would use the September meeting to re-raise the issue of automatic expulsion of citizens from other EU states who cannot sustain themselves financially and made an explicit reference to Roma.

Meanwhile, the EU commission on Monday (23 August) rejected the French idea that failure to integrate the Roma minority should stop Romania from joining the bloc's border-free area known as Schengen. "There is actually no criteria in the Schengen about integration of a population," EU commission spokesman Matthew Newman said during a press briefing. -It's a surprise to conservative politicians in France and Italy, but "open borders" within Europe apparently doesn't exclude minority ethnic groups.

French EU affairs minister Pierre Lellouche on Monday in an article in Le Figaro implied that Romania and Bulgaria should not be allowed to join the EU's borderless area in March if they do not "take up their responsibility" towards Roma.

Meanwhile, a technical assessment of Romania and Bulgaria's compliance with air and sea border security and data security requirements was positively endorsed by all member states in the Schengen working group comprising of diplomats from all EU countries, plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, who are also part of the border-free area.