Just when the Jospin government thought it could forget about France's messiest issue - illegal immigrants - Mr Charles Pasqua fired a warning shot in what promises to be an intense ideological debate in the run-up to the June 1999 European elections.
By proposing that France give residence papers to 70,000 sans- papiers (illegals) whose applications for legal status were rejected over the past year, Mr Pasqua shocked left and right alike. "The World Cup showed everyone that integration has succeeded 90 per cent in this country," the former Gaullist interior minister told Le Monde five days after France's multi-racial team won the championship. "At such a time, when France is strong, she can be generous. She must make a gesture - de Gaulle would probably have done so."
Mr Pasqua's late conversion to multi-culturalism was surprising, given his past reputation for toughness. In two stints as France's top policeman, he was the first to charter aircraft to repatriate illegal immigrants, proposed expelling foreign delinquents who grew up in France and drafted a strict immigration law.
Mr Pasqua blames the present Interior Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Chevenement, for devising a system under which only half of 140,000 applicants for legal residence were accepted. The government does not have the means to expel the others, who are now in legal limbo.
Ms Jacqueline Costa-Lascoux, director of research at the French science foundation CNRS, is an active opponent of French immigration policy. "They demand documents which illegal residents can't possibly have - like pay chits and rent receipts, when they are working illegally and live with friends or relatives." These criteria lead to absurd inequities. Among the immigrants she has worked with, a divorced feminist midwife who lived alone with her daughter and was threatened by Algerian Islamists was refused legal residence in France, but a man from Mali with 12 children, who made his three wives work as prostitutes, received his papers in two months.
"What will happen to the 70,000 (who were rejected)?" Mr Pasqua asked. "Since they must make a living, they will be exploited by bosses and some will turn to crime. We will drag this mess around for years to come." Mr Pasqua quoted another Corsican - Napoleon - as saying "there are some situations you can only get out of by doing something wrong. In this instance, we can only get out of it by granting residence to everyone who asked for it."
Mr Pasqua also reiterated his proposal that citizens of former French colonies be given priority through an immigration quota.
"Look at the French world champion team. Look at the youths in our suburbs. They come from our former colonies. We cannot forget the role that Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians and Africans played in the liberation of France. We cannot treat them like Sri Lankans," he said.
But the Jospin government does not want to lose face by changing its policy. "Monsieur Pasqua s'amuse," ("Mr Pasqua is having fun") was Mr Chevenement's only response to the bombshell.
Mr Jospin's need for right-wing votes in the 2002 presidential election is blamed for his relatively hard line on immigration. But he may have misjudged French voters. An opinion poll showed that 50 per cent of the population approve Mr Pasqua's idea of legalising all of the sans- papiers, while only 43 per cent oppose it.
Recent experience shows that immigrants who fight hard to become legal usually win. A month-long hunger strike by 30 Chinese and Turkish sans-papiers in a Paris church ended on July 16th. Hunger strikes "are not a weapon you use in a democracy", Mr Jospin had commented.
Yet he was forced to back down after three of the protesters were hospitalised, and Mr Chevenement promised to re-examine 2,000 cases. In June, the government also relented after a hunger strike by 10 Algerians and Tunisians threatened with expulsion after serving prison sentences.
Charles de Gaulle was suspected of plotting to install himself as French dictator by British second World War agents working to free France, archives made public for the first time yesterday show.
The "entente cordiale" between the irascible wartime French leader and the British government was plagued by mistrust and frequent diplomatic rows, according to the declassified documents.
A memo written in October 1941 by a top London operative notes from two sources that the general wanted to set up a "Legion Gaulliste" to function as a political party at the end of the conflict.
It adds: "He then had it in mind to go to His Majesty's Government and ask to be sent back as dictator to France on the ground that popular opinion in France desires the solution."
