Chirac, Juppe struggle to contain heat generated by immigration bill

THE FRENCH Prime Minister, Mr Alain Juppe, tried to calm things before the parliamentary debate on immigration began. The debate will end today or tomorrow, but the passions it has unleashed are far from over.

Mr Juppe even wrote a front page editorial for Le Monde calling the exchange of insults over the draft law "a misunderstanding" and asking political parties to "maintain solidarity based on the heritage of the Republic".

Without naming the extremist National Front, he warned that the rift between mainstream parties "could help all those whom republicans want to fight".

Before the debate, some demonstrators had carried suitcases or worn yellow Stars of David as a reminder of the deportation of French Jews during the second World War.

"We haven't yet exorcised our shame," Mr Juppe admitted. "Otherwise how could we live in such intellectual and moral confusion?"

Referring to a parallel being drawn between the "laws" of Vichy and those of the Republic, he asked: "Can you imagine such a hodge podge of ideas anywhere other than in France?"

But the protesters are not about to give up. Braving icy rain, some 20,000 marched down the Boulevard St Germain towards the National Assembly on Tuesday evening. They chanted old slogans from the May 1968 student riots, "No pasaran!" (of Spanish civil war vintage) and "Police everywhere, justice nowhere". "We are all German Jews" was replaced by "We are all immigrants children".

As the demonstrators were dispersing, a few young men dug up paving stones to hurl at the riot police protecting the parliament. The first scuffles broke out, only to resume in the Latin Quarter in the early hours of yesterday morning. A shop window was broken and rubbish bins were burned. Twenty two policemen were slightly injured and 80 youths were arrested.

In their deliberations, the members of parliament were almost as unruly as the protesters. They booed and interrupted one another until the speaker was hoarse.

The Interior Minister, Mr Jean Louis Debre, said he would not be swayed by street demonstrations: "It is here [in parliament], and nowhere else that the nation's immigration policy will be decided.

President Jacques Chirac had tried to stay above the immigration fray, but he scolded Mr Jose Maria Gil Robles, the new President of the European Parliament, for a resolution passed in Strasbourg against the Debre law. The resolution, Mr Chirac said, was "clear interference in the internal affairs of France".

The former Socialist prime minister, Mr Laurent Fabius, held the floor for an hour and a half. The number of immigrants had declined from 150,000 per year in the 1980s to 65,000 at present, he said. Those requesting asylum had decreased from 15,000 to 6,000 per year. The logic of the Debre law was "You are foreign, therefore you are suspicious".

"No, immigration is not the number one problem of France," Mr Fabius said. "The problem is unemployment, poverty. And, the immigrants are not the cause.

"Yes, they are," came the angry response from the right wing benches.