thought that was illegal in France?

Sarko is a vicious, unpopular dwarf who faces a very difficult election very soon. He is basically a poor quality Thatcher impersonator who talks the talk but bottles all big decisions. The left hate him for what he says he'll do and the right hate him for not doing it.

Marine Le Pen of the Front National is threatening to at least split the right wing vote and I reckon it is likely to be her or Sarko against the 'socialist' party in the last round. He's decided to be just as racist as the Front National so that his supporters don't defect to the beautifully groomed Nazi. The fact that a high percentage of French people are racist doyles who are considering voting for the FN might explain some of the difficulties with integration better than blaming the foreigners.

I don't understand people who criticise countries wanting to curb immigration. What is the aim of these people? To dispense with national identities and culture? To make the world one country?

Get rid of international sporting competitions. What's the point of having them if people want to merge/lose national identities.

France seems to be sleepwalking into one of the most nondescript political vaccuum it has known for years.
Sarko is a dead duck, Le Pen is riding high on the thicket protest vote, and the left has no credible candidate apart from the anonymous Francois Hollande, who has spectacularly failed to ignite popular support. On that basis, Napoleon could well get another shot at it.

Hold on a minute, I didn't realise that the World Cup and Euros were under direct threat from the immigrant hordes. Obviously we should all be forced to stay in our countries of birth to preserve the integrity of FIFA and UEFA controlled competitions. Your clever argument has won me over Mr Waldo, I must attempt to get French citizenship so I can vote for my choice of racist. Then I'll deport myself in the interests of global sport.

God bless Sepp Blatter and all who sail in him.

Think you're right on that M Allez. It's understandable that nobody has anything good to say for any of them and Sarko might slip back in on the basis of already being in the job and being prepared to say what he thinks people want to hear. On the other hand, if Le Pen can get a protest vote band wagon going, things could get nasty. I don't think it will happen but right wing voters aren't flocking to support Hollande so you never know.

Sarko is definitely a tit end but he's not alone in shooting himself in the foot with his mates in the UMP.

Among themselves, the Socialists won't be complaining mind. They'll be remembering Chirac's 80% vs JM LePen.

Anyway, if M LePen somehow does manage to get in she'll never be able to form a government whereas Sarko can, so logically he's the more dangerous of the two.

Oh and he's right, there are too many furriners in France. Just look at this board. :)

Now if you say there are too many Frenchmen in EUFA I wholeheartedly agree!

Are there that many of them that they're now trying to rename the bloody organisation?! Bastads.

We used to call it EUFA before they got their hands on it!

They have a genuine flair for bureaucracy that makes them ideally suited to running any organisation that has lots of letters as its name and exists purely to benefit its own officers, over-complicate matters and piss people off.

Did we? Seriously? 'Til when?

Or are you kidding me on?

Serious question like, as when I was very young I thought it was "EUFA" for a couple of years and then realised it was "UEFA" but just thought that I'd got it wrong initially. Maybe I had, maybe I hadn't, but I'm curious now!

You have spectacularly missed/overlooked the point.

What is the problem with a group of people wanting to limit other people from living with them?

Should families be expected to share their homes with other families?

A nation is just a family on a greater scale.

If your response is to be just another flippant one without serious consideration of the point made, don't bother.

According to the Free online dictionary:

Acronym....Definition
EUFA.........European Football Association (obsolete, now UEFA)

Yes I'm pretty sure when the Inter Cities Fairs cup was disbanded it was the Yoofa Cup that replaced it, not the Yourwafer Cup.
As to when we started calling it by its French name, ask the people who dropped the "s" from Lyons and Marseilles. I've no idea.

You have spectacularly missed/overlooked the point. No, I chose to mock it because I thought it was very silly.

What is the problem with a group of people wanting to limit other people from living with them? If you mean in their house, flat or bedsit, nothing. I don't think Sarkosy means his sofa is overcrowded or that he is sick of immigrants hiding the TV remote though.

Should families be expected to share their homes with other families? See above.

A nation is just a family on a greater scale. Really? How many families have armed forces, coppers, banks, education systems, manufacturing industry, public transport networks etc?

If your response is to be just another flippant one without serious consideration of the point made, don't bother. Sorry, didn't see this until the end and mocked it again.

OK, so you're unable to debate. No problem. Leave it to us grown-ups.

Your case might hold more water if your original post wasn't so contradictory...

I'm a member of the board and have as much right to post as you do. If you keep posting lunacy like, "Get rid of international sporting competitions. What's the point of having them if people want to merge/lose national identities," then I'll keep replying.

I'm really upset that you think I'm not a grown-up though. You can be very cruel Mr Waldo- that wasn't a nice thing to say.

Brilliant - you've created a Straw Man then attacked it.

My comment about international sporting events was not my primary discussion point but was merely an aside to my main point of 'Why should people have a problem with countries limiting immigration'?

What are these people who object trying to achieve? One nation on earth? To McDonaldsise the planet?

What is the problem with nations with different cultures and identities?

What was contradictory about my original post?

Sorry I didn't realise other board members were only supposed to reply to your primary points. Maybe you could colour code different bits of your posts to indicate.

I don't know about everybody else but my chief objection to Sarkosy deciding to complain about foreigners is that I live in his country working in a money spinning industry full of foreigners and he has no problem taking about €1,500 euros a month from me in tax and social charges as well as nearly 20% TVA added to my client's bills. He also seems keen enough on the foreigners who help to generate wealth in the Toulouse area whether its the European foreigners in the aerospace industry or the North African foreigners in the building industry and numerous dirty jobs that other people don't want. Doesn't stop him coming out with racist nonsense at election time though.

My comment on international sporting events was to highlight one of the effects of the constant dilution of national identities, i.e. a bi-product of what I was questioning in the main point. I thought that was clear but evidently not.

As for your objection as to what Sarkozy has said, I don't see how one prohibits the other. He hasn't said there should be no immigration, just that it should be limited.

If you object to paying such high amount of taxes, you could always try another country where you'd pay less or is the quid pro quo actually a fair deal?

There could also be the delicious irony that taxes are partly so high because of the non-contributing immigrants that rely on the state. You could be railing against changes that would actually improve your lot.

I have no problem with paying tax and didn't say I had. I object to the fact that Sarko is more than happy to reap the benefits of trans-national industries being based in France but has the cheek to complain about foreigners at the same time. The european and world economies depend on the movement of labour, skills and goods across national boundaries and this has been the case for at least two and a half thousand years. A major politician pretending that this can be reversed would be outright stupidity if it wasn't for the fact that he knows exactly what he is doing- playing the race card.

On the subject of the race card why are you assuming that there are large numbers of 'non-contributing immigrants' in France? A far as I can see most of the North Africans here, and that is who Sarko means when he says foreigners, work hard in poorly paid jobs and are entitled to residence because France invaded their countries and said they were part of France a while back. Still I only live here, the idea of a global conspiracy to dilute national cultures probably makes more sense than anything I can come up with.

There must be also be a reason that international companies choose to be based in France, so I don't see anyone losing out because of the arrangement.

If, as you put it, he is really trying stop the immigration of North Africans to France, why should that be a problem?

Sarko has no problem letting as many Europeans in as want to come (that he has no choice is neither nor here). In fact Sarko likes to think of himself as the Lord of Europe and is therefore one of the prime protagonists of European mixity.
Bang go national identities then according to your theory.

Algerians and Senegalese are of course a completely differenty kettle of fish. Who on earth would want them? </sarcasm>.

What about my treatment in the Dieppe police cell 20 years ago.Me and a couple of mates get whacked and gassed in the cells for having a good sing song near the ferry terminal..Does anyone give a ffk about that???

I'm assuming that was rhetorical.

France has always been full of foreigners...............bloody Frenchmen have always been foreigners.
Off with their heads !!!!!!! Bloody frogs.

And a better example than that of words that have slipped into the language through Eurospeak you will never find.

No. It would be to the benefit of mankind if they were still doing it now.

Totally agree and in reference to Waldo, the French and the powers at be were ok with the North Africans playing for their football team when they were winning stuff like the Euro's and the World Cup.

Are you being serious?

A country should base its immigration policy on how it will improve their sporting success?

No the point I ws making is that you said do away with international sports competrition as countries are diluted and I was making the point that France loved all the North Africans playing for them whne they won the world cup, you cant have your cake and eat it.

As I've already said, the comment about International Sporting events appears to have been misinterpretated.