France is For the French

January 15
Gareth Cartman

The spectre of Sarkozy hangs over France

And don't you forget it. Should Nicolas Sarkozy be elected in April, France will be a much less welcoming place. After his call for foreigners to be excluded from the law declaring that housing is a right for all, France is putting up the barriers - it's France for the French.

If 51% of French people polled recently are "worried" by Nicolas Sarkozy, imagine how foreigners feel at the possibility of Nicolas Sarkozy riding into the Elysée. The man criticised this weekend for his Napoleonic self-coronation is claiming that foreigners - even those with residence permits - be excluded from a law that allows residents of France to have a right to housing.

The law, which will house France's 20,000 homeless over the next few years, has been warmly received across the political spectrum after a concerted campaign by the pressure group Les Enfants de Don Quichotte, who have created homeless "campsites" around the country.

However, not only does Nicolas Sarkozy want to exclude those who do not have residence permits, he wants to exclude those who are granted a one-year permit - whether they pay tax to the state or not. In recent years, the number of residence permits granted to foreigners has dropped as Nicolas Sarkozy takes a hardline over immigration. Last year, Nicolas Sarkozy declared that he wanted to reduce the number of foreign students entering the country by making the application process for a residence permit even harder than before.

So just what image of France does Nicolas Sarkozy want to project? Naturally, these are election months and the only people who count - in the eyes of a Presidential candidate - are the voters; and these voters are French. Playing the immigration card has been Nicolas Sarkozy's favourite trick since he was installed at the Place Beauveau, home of the Interior Ministry. The diminuitive Minister has cracked down on squats and illegal residents, deporting hundreds of thousands of people - in many cases, splitting up families.

Already, the number of foreigners coming to France is dropping. Even EU nationals are choosing to move to other countries in search of work, such as Ireland or Great Britain, while France's expatriate population continues to dwindle as work - and housing - becomes harder to find. The ugly sibling of the EU would only get uglier with Sarkozy as President.

While it appears that a Sarkozy-led France would be to the taste of Britain and the US governments, a France run by Sarkozy would represent Jean-Marie Le Pen's very own dreamworld - a dreamworld that even he cannot mention for fear of losing voters. This is France for the French, a land in which foreigners are not welcome, and are not made to feel welcome. France needs its immigrants, perhaps more than its immigrants need France.

Nicolas Sarkozy doesn't just worry 51% of French people, he worries an entire community of foreigners who live by French law and contribute to the French state. They may not be able to influence the vote in April, but they will all be praying that this extremely dangerous and divisive little man is not elected.

Links:Expatriate Anti-Sarkozy website: www.sarkotusors.org