A commission established by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to study his proposals to curb illegal immigration has concluded that his ideas for establishing quotas is useless, French media reported on Monday.
Both the left-wing daily Liberation and the conservative newspaper Le Figaro published extracts from the report, which described Sarkozy's plans to set up quotas as "impracticable and useless", reported dpa
"A policy of immigration quotas would be without real utility regarding labour immigration, inefficient against illegal immigration," the report concluded.
Media information about the report came at a delicate time for Sarkozy and his Immigration Minister, Brice Hortefeux. EU interior ministers began meeting Monday in Cannes to discuss an immigration pact for the Union in which Sarkozy and Hortefeux want to set up quotas for all of Europe.
In September 2007, Sarkozy told France 2 television that he wanted that each year a maximum number be established for "the number of foreigners we welcome to our territory."
In addition, he said he wanted to establish "a quota by profession ... (and) naturally a quota by world region."
The 13-member commission was headed by Pierre Mazeaud, a conservative former head of the Constitutional Council, the French equivalent of the US Supreme Court.