French president wants to reduce immigration further if re-elected

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has claimed that there are too many immigrants in France and the system for integrating them is "working worse and worse".

During a recent television debate on 6 March, Sarkozy said there were "too many foreigners in France" and defended his plan to almost halve the number of new immigrants if re-elected next month. The president said while immigration could be beneficial for France, it also needed to be restricted further with tougher requirements for residency.

He has claimed that if re-elected, he will reduce immigration to France from 180,000 a year to 100,000 and introduce tighter controls on certain immigrant's access to benefits payments.

"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," said Sarkozy.

Meanwhile Mireille Le Corre, immigration spokeswoman for the Socialist Party's rival presidential candidate Francois Hollande, argued that Sarkozy's plans are "irresponsible, impossible, and bad politics".

During his current presidential term, Sarkozy has already approved tough new anti-immigration measures. In August 2010 there were mass deportations of Roma gypsies. Many have said that this is in breach of European Union immigration laws and international law.

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