France Cracks Down on Illegal Immigrants

Members of illegal immigrant families rest in a gymnasium in Cachan, south of Paris, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006. For dozens of those families, the gymnasium has become a temporary home where they sleep shoulder-to-shoulder, their dingy mattresses piled with necessities and small treasures. Almost all Africans, the families were evicted from France's largest squat on Aug. 17. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon) (Jacques Brinon - AP)

Sarkozy's immigration crackdown has been inspired by worries that many newcomers are not integrating _ as witnessed by three weeks of riots in France's poor, immigrant-heavy neighborhoods last fall _ and by broad concerns that immigrants poach welfare benefits and jobs in a country where unemployment hovers around 9 percent.

Those fears have long been the domain of the extreme-right, but Sarkozy says mainstream politicians must not shy away from them.

The government has offered payments to illegal immigrants who agree to return home, such as $6,300 for a family of four with young children. Sarkozy championed a new law that makes it harder for foreigners to bring their families here, but easier for those with special talents.

Angering human rights groups, he pledged to deport families of illegals unless they could prove their school-age children had strong ties to France. By an August deadline, the Interior Ministry received almost 30,000 applications from people hoping to stay. Sarkozy said authorities expected to approve only 6,000.

In Cachan, aid groups say that up to 200 people are crammed into the gymnasium, about half of them illegal immigrants, many of them children. Pressure is building: With the school year starting Monday, the mayor of Cachan wants his gymnasium back.

Regional officials have offered to put the immigrants up in hotels, or to move them as a group to temporary housing. But they are holding out for a better offer. The group doesn't want to separate for fear they will lose negotiating power, and they want to be close to public transportation so they can get to jobs, schools and supermarkets.

Bintou Toure, a 29-year-old mother of four, said she would not budge for anything less than a permanent home with a kitchen. She came to France to flee fighting in her native Ivory Coast and won residence papers, but her husband is here illegally.

"I lost everything in my country," she said, spoon-feeding baby food to her youngest. "Now I am homeless in France."