Minister sparks anger over French birthright laws

By Marcel Michelson

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s minister for overseas affairs
provoked outrage this weekend by saying illegal immigrants were
giving birth on French territory to ensure their children had
French nationality.

Francois Baroin called for a debate on France’s birthright
laws, challenging a taboo at the heart of France’s near-sacred
republican values. It was a fresh sign mainstream politicians
are jumping on France’s right-wing anti-immigration bandwagon.

A child born on French ground is French, irrespective of
parentage. Baroin said on Saturday that parents expecting
children were immigrating illegally to France’s overseas
territories to give birth to French children.

“I have seen things that have shocked me and on the basis
of these truths on the ground I want to reopen the debate. The
law permits it,” he told Radio France Outre-mer (RFO) in a rare
outspoken interview by a usually low-profile minister.

He said that on the island of Mayotte, a French territory
in the Indian Ocean Comoros archipelago, “more than 30 percent
of the inhabitants are of illegal origin.”

Some 1.7 million people live in France’s overseas
territories and departments. The former include French
Polynesia, New Caledonia and Mayotte and enjoy more autonomy
than departments while retaining certain French rights and
obligations.

Baroin, whose ministry governs France’s relations with
those regions, said he did not exclude a review of the right by
birthplace that determines who can become French.

BREAKING A TABOO

In the weekly Figaro magazine, Baroin went a step further
and said discussing the law of birthright even on mainland
France “should no longer be a taboo.”

Similar laws apply in other countries, the United States
for example. In Germany, children of foreign parentage must
decide as young adults whether to take their parents’
nationality instead of the German.

Baroin’s remarks provoked condemnation by the opposition
Socialist Party (PS) and the SOS Racism association.

Former Socialist Culture Minister and presidential hopeful
Jack Lang said it called into question basic republican values.

PS National Secretary Malek Boutih said in a statement:
“Francois Baroin opens a debate that is dangerous for the
future of the republic.”

He added the discussion would open the door to a change in
the French nationality system “clearly aimed at all foreigners
and their children, undermining the French republican model.”

SOS Racism’s chairman, Dominique Sopo, said he would
mobilize broad French opposition if the goverment attempted to
review the birthright law.

Christiane Taubira, a left-wing parliamentarian from
Guyane, said Baroin’s words “endangered France’s interests in
its relations with the rest of the world.”

Anti-immigration issues have long been the preserve of the
extreme right, such as the National Front (FN), whose leader
made it to the runoff of the 2002 presidential elections.

Some moderate, right-of-centre politicians are talking
tough on immigration to boost their standing as they jockey for
position ahead of the next elections.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right
government’s number two, has made tackling illegal immigration
a plank of his campaign to become France’s next president in
2007.

And the cabinet is drawing up laws to reorient French
immigration policy at Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s
behest.

(additional reporting by Emmanual Jarry)