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French panel seeks

tough restrictions

on immigration

PARIS: A French parliamentary commission of inquiry called on Tuesday for tough new restrictions on immigration, including the right to detain illegal immigrants for up to 45 days before deporting them.

The report by Gaullist deputy Suzanne Sauvaigo, adopted by the centre-right majority against the opposition of the Socialists and Communists, made 50 proposals to tighten already restrictive legislation enacted in 1993.

"The fight against illegal immigration and illegal residence is everybody's business," the report said.

Among the proposals were fingerprinting visa applicants from "high migration risk countries", restricting medical treatment for illegal immigrants and extending from 10 to 45 days the maximum period they may be held in pre-deportation custody.

Officials complain that government efforts to expel illegal aliens are often thwarted by the inability to identify them within the 10 days during which they can be held. Many destroy their identity papers and refuse to disclose their nationality.

The report suggested that illegal aliens be detained administratively for 15 days, renewable twice on the approval of a judge.

"This measure is aimed at keeping illegal aliens under control for the time necessary to organise their expulsion," it said.

It advocated harsher punishments for employers who hire illegal labour, including a five-year depriviation of civil rights for French employers and the loss of residence rights for foreign employers.

The government estimates there are some one million illegal immigrants in France on top of a population of 58 million.

The extreme-right National Front has won up to 15 percent of the national vote by blaming immigration for unemployment, crime and insecurity and calling for the expulsion of three million immigrants.

Even before the report became public, human rights groups accused the government of pandering to prejudice by dramatising illegal immigration. A U.N. human rights commission report last week expressed concern at a growth of racism and xenophobia in France.

Interior Minister Jean-Louis Debre has said his ministry is drafting legislation to make it harder for foreign visitors to overstay their three-month tourist visas and clamp down further on moonlighting by illegal immigrants.

Debre argues that legal immigrants can only be successfully integrated into French society if the public is convinced the government is doing everything in its power to stem illegal immigration.

The commission supported Debre's proposal to establish a central office for the fight against illegal immigration to coordinate the numerous security and welfare services concerned.

Police staged a highly publicised raid on illegal textile workshops in a Paris suburb last week, but they have refrained from attacking the capital's main garment district, notorious for clandestine sewing-shops and kerbside "slave market".

Under the commission's proposals, illegal immigrants would be denied all but emergency hospital treatment.-Reuter