With support for the incumbent conservative ebbing and the victory of Socialist candidate François Hollande looking surer by the day, Mr Sarkozy made a series of proposals aimed at wooing back National Front sympathisers who voted for him en masse in 2007 but have since become disillusioned.
"Our system of integration is working more and more badly, because we have too many foreigners on our territory and we can no longer manage to find them accommodation, a job, a school," Mr Sarkozy said.
The president has clearly veered Right since formally announcing his re-election campaign two weeks ago, and FN candidate Marine Le Pen has accused him of liberally borrowing from her manifesto.
In an almost two-and-a-half hour television grilling, a combative Mr Sarkozy insisted that while immigration could remain "a boon" for France in many areas, it would have to toughen residency qualifications for newcomers.
"Over the five year term I think that to restart the process of integration in good conditions, we must divide by two the number of people that we welcome, that's to say to pass from 180,000 per year to 100,000," he said. » | Henry Samuel, Paris | Tuesday, March 06, 2012
