Right step to keep illegal immigrants out of the land of France.

It was a Tuesday evening and in a predominant immigrant neighborhood of Belleville, people were running towards the metro station

The atmosphere was tensed and for many, this ride home might be the last one in France.

A small group of people were warning all those entering the station that there are police in the metro. Down on the platform, there was a unit of French police officers, who were doing a random check of immigration documents of people. Those who are found to be illegally residing in the country can be swept up right away, put in detention, and then be deported back home. These types of immigration sweeps in public places have become a routine in France over the last year.

Fortunately, here in Canada, migrants are not going through such horrific experiences on such a large scale, but the threat of being snatched up by the police in the subway, a hardware store, a garment shop, or even at home is still an everyday reality for many immigrants. In fact, after the recent changes to the Canadian Immigration Act by the conservative government, it seems that the future of immigration in this country is similar to that in France.

In May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy rose to power on a platform of tightening immigration controls. His rise to power displays a troubling triumph of decisive, racist politics in France. During the riots in 2005, Sarkozy was a minister of the interior and he declared then that youth rioters were “scum” and that they should be cleaned off the streets with a karcher, which is a very high power cleaning machine. Following this, in December 2006, when he was still an interior minister, he announced a target to deport at least 25000 undocumented people every year from the country. So, when Sarkozy was voted as president of the Republic after six months and maintained the same objective, many said that Sarkozy has already declared war against the undocumented migrants.

Sarkozy has described two trends of immigration that are going on in France: the first one is “suffered immigration”, referring to those who cross the border illegally and “chosen immigration”, when France decides who to let in and who to reject. He believes that it is necessary to move away from the former and use the latter to boost the French economy. So, France’s recently introduced regularization program favors highly skilled and mostly white immigrants from the newest member-states of the European Union.