Sarkozy immigration policy called 'racist'

[maddezmom]

Source: Montreal Gazette


President Nicolas Sarkozy's racially tinged security crackdown has begun to cause concern even within his own right-wing camp and raise fears that he has damaged France's international image.

Every day, French police raid more Gypsy settlements, rounding up hundreds of foreign-born Roma for expulsion, using tactics that one member of Sarkozy's ruling party compared to those of France's Nazi-era collaboration.

The crackdown on illegal Gypsy campsites comes alongside planned measures to strip some foreign-born criminals of their citizenship, after the government made an explicit link between immigration and crime



Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Sarkozy+immigration+policy+called+racist/3411522/story.html#ixzz0wwe0WelU


Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Sarkozy+immigration+policy+called+racist/3411522/story.html

[pampango]

1. Sarkozy hopes such stringent tactics will restore his flagging popularity with French voters in the

run-up to the 2012 presidential election, but the harsh tone has raised eyebrows even among some politicians of the right."

"On the Left, while the main opposition Socialist Party has been wary of being drawn into a debate on law and order with a president who has usually made the issue a vote-winner, criticism has been more harsh.

The Green Euro-MP and likely presidential candidate Eva Joly accused Sarkozy of pursuing a policy of "state racism" and described the president's singling out of Roma and foreign-born citizens as "very fascist."

Sarkozy's supporters have dismissed the complaints as stemming from elitist political correctness that ignores the fears that native-born French voters have of violent crime spreading from immigrant neighbourhoods. They still hope Sarkozy can repeat his success of 2007 and persuade voters tempted by the unabashedly anti-immigration National Front to stick with a mainstream right-wing leader with a tough law and order message.

Imagine that. A conservative politician fanning the flames of "fear the immigrant" in order to "restore his flagging popularity with voters". Criticism may come from the left but Sarkozy hopes he can gain support from National Front voters.