France promises to toughen up entry requirements
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that the number of immigrants is continually growing in his country but the newcomers experience great difficulties in integrating into French society
"Our system of integration is working more and more badly, because we have too many foreigners on our territory and we can no longer manage to find them accommodation, a job, a school," the French president said in a TV debate.
Sarkozy pledged to reduce the number of immigrants after winning the presidential elections from 180,000 down to just 100,000 a year. He also promised to place tighter restriction on doling out welfare benefits to immigrants.
"While immigration could be a boon for France, it needs to be controlled more tightly through tougher qualification rules for residency," he said.
He also said he wanted to restrict some benefit payments to immigrants who had been in the country for 10 years.
