The Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Development, headed by Brice Hortefeux, officially announced that the decision of Africans to voluntarily return to their homeland will be rewarded with 6,000 euros. This amount will be paid to families with two children, reports the publication L?Expression, without specifying the nature of the monetary compensation for families of other demographic compositions.
A number of observers consider this amount significant enough to influence a family's decision to return to their home country and even help them settle there initially. Such measures can even be seen as a balanced and thoughtful approach to reducing the number of immigrants, which places a heavy burden on the country's economy. Moreover, according to experts' calculations, the sums of money that immigrants settled in France send to relatives remaining at home total more than the amount of financial aid that France officially provides to developing countries. That is why, the immigration minister believes, it is necessary to 'reorient this financial 'manna' from the sphere of supporting the viability of individual families to the sphere of investment' at a qualitatively different level. This approach, according to the French leadership, is a combination of pragmatism and humanism.
Meanwhile, this financial assistance program for those who agreed to leave France has been in place for several years, albeit so far on a fairly limited scale. In 2005, about a thousand people used it, and in 2006 about two thousand. In 2007, Hortefeux committed to returning at least 25,000 new French citizens to their native lands. Those who still aspire to the homeland of Voltaire can expect an innovation - a mandatory French language test. In the future, even more draconian requirements may be introduced for immigrants to France: they must have professional skills that allow them to perform some kind of work.