As Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports, on the same day - what a coincidence - French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin spoke at an interministerial meeting with a proposal to prepare a bill on tightening immigration rules.
Sarkozy focused on surveillance cameras that will be installed in crowded places in order to monitor the situation around the clock. From now on, potential terrorists will know that their actions, recorded on tape, will become important evidence. It is expected that such a measure will cool their ardor.
The law places under control the movement of people from France abroad and back into the country. In implementation of the new law, Sarkozy has developed a “plan” for the forced expulsion of suspicious foreigners from France. Already this year their number will exceed 20,000. For 2006, it is “planned” to show 25,000 the door. Where these “promising figures” came from is hard to say.
Villepin, for his part, focused on restricting the automatic acquisition of French citizenship through a fictitious marriage to a Frenchman or Frenchwoman. To this end, the government will increase the minimum period of cohabitation of spouses from the current two to four years if the family lives in France. And from three to five years for a family living abroad.
The procedure for concluding mixed marriages abroad is becoming more complicated. Now the bride and groom will be required to have an interview with the French consul. He will decide whether the marriage is fictitious. Moreover, the supervisory functions of the prosecutor's office in the city of Nantes are being strengthened; it will receive copies of registrations of mixed marriages abroad. From now on, its refusal to recognize a marriage as valid can be challenged only in court.
Young foreigners will find it difficult to enroll in French universities. Until now, it was enough for a prospective student to obtain a certificate of admission to a university. Now he must pass through the sieve of the Center for Studies in France.
Foreign graduates of French higher education institutions will find it harder to get a job in France. They will be given only six months for this. If you don't make it, go home.
The French prime minister also spoke in favor of restoring order in such a delicate matter as family reunification. It often happens that a person from another country who has settled in France invites close and distant relatives to “reunite.” This right is granted to him by the French constitution. Without questioning this right, the prime minister proposes to make family reunification conditional on at least the French law prohibiting polygamy and knowledge of the French language.
As for the “coincidence” in time of the legislative initiatives of the head of the French government and his minister, everything is clear here. Both do not want to yield the initiative to each other in resolving issues painful for the French on the eve of the presidential election in the country. Villepin and Sarkozy are considered the main contenders from the ruling majority for the highest state post.