Record Foreigners expelled from France

The figures released by France’s Interior Minister Claude Guéant reveal that a record 32,912 foreigners were expelled from France last year.
2011 saw a 3.6 per cent drop in residence permits issued and a 26 per cent reduction in the number of salaried foreigners such as those working for big companies, settling in France.
14 per cent fewer people immigrated to France to be with their families, than in 2010.
Despite the 14 per cent drop, this is still by far the largest category of immigrants, with 45 per cent of the total and the 6 laws passed in the last 10 years have had little effect on that number.
There has been a 30 per cent drop in the number of naturalisations compared with 2010 – a record fall.
Guéant pointed to the “effectiveness” of a recent law which cut the amount of funding made available to foreigners to pay for legal expertise, while awaiting examination of their demands to stay in France.
Guéant also declared that he would toughen his stance on marriages of convenience and pursue annulments of bogus marriages, and also tighten up the rules on immigration to re unite families, all in a bid to return to 1990s levels of immigration to France.
Analysts point out, however, that immigration figures have dropped in many European countries whose economies are now less attractive to incomers.