Sarkozy stigmatises immigrants and glorifies the French nation

Sarkozy wants to create a social and ideological base whereby any action by workers to defend their rights and living standards would be counted as unpatriotic and even treasonable.

He scapegoats immigrants and denies their human rights: “A person who enters France illegally, a person who makes no attempt to integrate, that person should not expect to have the same rights as a French person.... I want undocumented immigrants to be excluded from the legal right to be housed. I want an immigrant who is legally resident not to be able to bring his family over, unless, prior to entering our territory, that family has learnt to speak French and we are sure that the income from his work enables him to look after it and house it decently” (emphasis added). He justifies this by the claim: “I want to protect France and its values.”

The message—that immigrants represent a danger to the French way of life and culture, and that an increased hounding of them is justified—has been enthusiastically welcomed by neo-fascist presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. He commented that Sarkozy was “whoring for votes on the National Front’s patch,” but defended him from his critics, saying that to refuse “to associate immigration and national identity” is to deny that “immigration can harm the national identity.”

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/sark-m15.shtml