[Daily Nation (Kenya)] President Nicolas Sarkozy...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit...
threatened in a key re-election campaign rally Sunday to pull La Belle France out of Europe's 25-nation visa free zone unless the EU toughens its immigration policy.
Sarkozy, who this week said La Belle France had too many foreigners, made the threat at a mass meeting which he hopes will turn the tide against front-running Socialist Francois Hollande with just 42 days to go before election day.
The so-called Schengen passport-free zone must urgently be overhauled to fight the flow of illegal immigration, said the right-wing leader, returning to a constant theme in his bid for five more years at the Elysee palace.
To chants of "Nicolas, president!" from the tens of thousands in the flag-waving audience, Sarkozy said unchecked immigration would put extra strain on social safety nets for Europe's poorest.
"In the coming 12 months, (if) there is no serious progress towards this (reforming Schengen), La Belle France would then suspend its participation in the Schengen accords until negotiations conclude," he declared.
The Schengen area is home to 400 million Europeans who can cross borders without a passport. Once inside the area, undocumented Democrats can theoretically move freely between the participating states.
Sarkozy's UMP party chartered TGV high-speed trains and fleets of buses to ferry supporters from across La Belle France for the rally in a cavernous exhibition hall in Villepinte, near Gay Paree Charles de Gaulle airport.
Sarkozy told them he also wanted the EU to introduce a "Buy European Act" based on a US measure that obliges the state to use domestically-produced products in public contracts.
He warned that if the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
did not do this within a year he would, if re-elected in the two-round vote in April and May, implement a unilateral "Buy French" law.
"I want a Europe that protects its citizens. I no longer want this savage competition," he told the crowd, which the UMP estimated at 70,000. He said he rejected the idea of "a Europe that opens up its markets when others do not".