Plans for a Europe-wide clampdown on immigration that could see asylum-seekers forced to apply for refugee status in advance and more effective deportation measures, are to be at the heart of France’s European Union presidency.
Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, is proposing a co-ordinated crackdown on illegal immigration in government documents, seen by the Financial Times, which have been drawn up in preparation for France’s EU presidency, which starts in July.
The document – a so-called “pact on immigration” – also calls for swift implementation of biometric visas and compulsory language lessons for all new arrivals. It acknowledges that the EU needs migrants for demographic and economic reasons but it adds: “Europe does not have the means to welcome with dignity all those who see an Eldorado in it.”
It calls for EU member states to establish compulsory “integration contracts” for newcomers. They would have to learn the language of the country they were living in as well as “national and European values” such as gender equality and tolerance.
Mr Sarkozy’s proposals include a fresh drive to return unlawful entrants to their home countries. The unpublished pact emerged as Mr Sarkozy announced in Warsaw that France would lift labour market restrictions on central and eastern Europeans whose countries joined the EU in 2004.
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