French people smugglers

The Sun 13/01/2010

A FRENCH politician faces up to 14 years in jail after she admitted smuggling 16 Vietnamese migrants into Britain in the back of a van.

Christiane Chocat, 51, was arrested along with her 20-year-old son Benjamin after arriving in the UK on a ferry from the Cherbourg.

UK Border Agency officers were alerted when they spotted condensation on the window of the van.

They then found 13 men and three women crouching inside a 5ft long and 3ft high, purpose-built wooden box hidden behind cases of shrimp noodles.

Chocat's arrest baffled residents in the town of Lumigny-Nesles-Ormeaux, near Paris, where she is a councillor and has been described as 'a pillar of the local community'.

But today at Portsmouth Crown Court she admitted smuggling the illegal immigrants into the continental ferry port at Portsmouth, Hants, on October 1 2009.

Her son had admitted the same charge at an earlier hearing.

Prosecutor Martyn Booth told the hearing: "We do not seek to go behind the suggestion that her son was the main player in this enterprise.

France Opens National Identity Debate

VOA News 30/12/2009

France's center-right government has launched a national debate about what it means to be French. The discussion on national identity is being described as a way for citizens to take stock of who they are and of France's place in the world. Critics argue it casts suspicion on immigrants and on French minorities.

Many outsiders sum up "Frenchness" through a series of cliches - berets, baguettes, good cheese and wine. But immigration has changed the face of France. Some French Muslim women wear headscarves. The traditional North African dish, couscous, is a favorite here. Arab words like Toubib - or doctor - pepper the French language.

So what does it mean to be French today? President Nicolas Sarkozy has tapped another French staple - the love of debate - to launch a three-month, national conversation on the subject. There's even an Internet site (www.debatidentitenationale.fr) where Eric Besson, France's minister for immigration, integration and national identity, invites French to air their views.

In a videotaped message on the Web site, Besson says the debate aims to examine French values - which include equality, fraternity, secularism and gender equality - and to sketch France's common future. Suggested topics for discussion include whether France should have integration contracts for immigrants applying for citizenship and whether students should be required to sing the French national anthem.