Immigration France changes immigration policy in favour of the skilled and educated

[Maciamo]

Countries like the USA, and even more Canada, Australia and Japan have been doing it for ages. It's time that France and quite a few other European countries follow suit, if we don't want Europeans to ireversibly associate immigration with poverty and integration problems.

Expatica : Immigration bill to increase influx of smarts and skills

The French government Thursday agreed on a bill that would overhaul its immigration policies to favour highly skilled foreigners in a bid to boost economic competitiveness.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is championing the legislation, has warned that France is losing out to the United States in attracting qualified migrants in technical and cultural fields.
...
The bill, approved in a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, would give skilled, non-EU migrants a three-year working visa and facilitate the entry of foreign students if they promise to return home after their diplomas.
...
Part of the proposed law would see stricter checks made on marriages involving a French citizen and a foreigner to crack down on bogus unions.

France last year took in 164,000 immigrants. Many of them come from North African countries under French influence, such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

 

[RockLee]

A good idea if you ask me, time Belgium does something like this too.

 

[godppgo]

An immigration policy base heavily on selecting only the "highly skilled" is a rather short sighted policy. Yes bringing in large number of highly skilled immigrants will alleviate economic problems such as shortage of skilled labor but it will only act as a temporary relief, not addressing the root of the problem which is the aging of population.

A key element in the success of a long term immigration policy is the ability to assist immigrants' children and "retain" them in the country until they are able to contribute to the society. The 2nd generation of immigrants have very little problem of blending into the society (at least in Canada) and are more likely to succeed than their parents mostly due to fluency in the language.

 

[bossel]

An immigration policy base heavily on selecting only the "highly skilled" is a rather short sighted policy.

Yep, & it doesn't really work, as it seems. Germany tried that with the introduction of some kind of Green Card to attract esp. IT workers. Was a failure.
What's more, Germany had a lot of immigrants (with German roots) from Eastern Europe. A rather high percentage of those were skilled workers, yet ended up in unemployment or low level work.

Yes bringing in large number of highly skilled immigrants will alleviate economic problems such as shortage of skilled labor but it will only act as a temporary relief, not addressing the root of the problem which is the aging of population.

Quite so. Those with a higher education & higher standard of living tend to have less kids.

The 2nd generation of immigrants have very little problem of blending into the society (at least in Canada) and are more likely to succeed than their parents mostly due to fluency in the language.

Well, that seems to be a problem in France. But instead of addressing the issue of improperly integrated immigrants who are already there, they "invent" something that most probably won't work, anyway. Maybe it's only supposed to be a smoke screen.

 

[godppgo]

What's more, Germany had a lot of immigrants (with German roots) from Eastern Europe. A rather high percentage of those were skilled workers, yet ended up in unemployment or low level work.

Why do you think those skilled workers immigrated to Germany ended up with no job or low wage job? When they apply for immigration, shouldn't the government evaluated their chances of achieving a standard of living comparable to their skills or educations?

The same thing is also observed in Canada where it is not uncommon to find immigrants with a masters or PhD degree working at the mall.

 

[Minty]

Yes bringing in large number of highly skilled immigrants will alleviate economic problems such as shortage of skilled labor but it will only act as a temporary relief, not addressing the root of the problem which is the aging of population.

Quite so. Those with a higher education & higher standard of living tend to have less kids.
.

The French seem to have put in very strong financial incentives for the middle classes (not likely to be Muslims but non-Muslims in particularly white Europeans) to start having more infants.