Sarkozy threatens to exit Schengen zone

Speaking to thousands of his supports at a key re-election campaign rally in Villepinte north of Paris on Sunday, Sarkozy said that reform was the only way to avoid the “implosion” of Europe.

Sarkozy pledge on the hot-button theme of immigration comes as polls show he is well behind the front-running Social candidate Farncois Hollande.

Earlier in the week, Sarkozy said that France has too many foreigners and the system for integrating them was “working worse and worse”. Critics accused him of competing for the votes of the far right.

Sarkozy said France would suspend participation in the Schengen agreement unless there is progress over the issue in the next 12 months.

The Shengen accord allows passport free travel among 25 European nations. The Schengen area is home to 400 million Europeans. Illegal immigrants can also move freely between the participating states once they are inside the zone.

“I want a Europe that protects its citizens. I no longer want this savage competition,” Sarkozy said.

Sarkozy and his ruling Union for a Popular Movment (UMP) party mobilized all their resources around the massive Sunday rally, chartering trains and fleets of buses to ferry in people.

A recent poll by CSA showed Hollande would beat Sarkozy with 56 percent of the vote in a second round runoff May 6.

On Thursday, The incumbent said that he will give up politics if he fails in the vote on April 22 and May, adding that his Socialist challenger has a worrying “dearth of experience” for such troubled times.

PG/JR

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