FRANCE has been a country of immigration and no longer wants to be,' said Charles Pasqua, interior minister on the eve of presenting harsh new immigration legislation. He added:
We don't have the means. If we don't hold this line firmly. public opinion will harden and the country will drift to the extreme right.' France intends to pursue a policy of zero immigration' and no longer welcomes immigrants.
Pasqua wants to start a police crackdown of searching for and immediate expulsion of so-called illegal immigrants giving the police the power to check documents without a reason, to make it harder to obtain residents permits.
Prior to the legislation if someone lived in France for ten years they had automatic right to residency - now people will have to prove they entered the country legally. Similarly marrying someone French will be no guarantee of the right to entry or residence - people will have to prove they had the right to be in France anyway.
No appeal The right to asylum will now be decided by frontier police and there will be no right to appeal against refusal to admit some one at the border. There will also be no automatic right to family reunion.
These measures, alongside the similar legislation being inroduced in other EC countries form part of the project of the EC pull up the drawbridge of Fortress Europe.
Pasqua also has his own project, his challenge to Jacques Chirac's candidacy for the presidential elections in 1995. Pasqua claims to be the true inheritor of De Gaulle's ideas, even claiming at my modest level I feel exactly like De Gaulle".
He claimed that the new laws. rather than promoting xenophobia and racist violence would address three popular concerns - French identity, the fight against crime and the integration of established settlers. He claims that unless these laws are enacted people will one day vote massively for the extreme right.
These arguments justifying racist laws are echoed across Europe. Pasqua claims that remarks that his party the Gaullist RPR shares the values of the racist National Front have been quoted 'out of context". But the laws he is now promoting speak louder on his real politics.
For the first time the unions are taking a stand. The public services union. the second hip. gest in the country, called a S0minutesuike last i nursaay. The printers' union openly blamed the government for what happened in Solingen Many left wingers inside the Social Democrats have good anti-racist positions, but their leadership has collaborated with the govemment all down the line in bringing in the new What lies behind the rise of racism and fascism in Germany? German fascism never went away after the war, it was only driven underground in al Rohit Dugal's family mourn his murder
silent SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 44 June 12 1993. Page 3