-- PARIS -- The French government may have felt it found the key to a new immigration strategy in three letters: DNA.Only the uber-sophisticated, metrosexual French could take a simple, straightforward idea like this and use it to publicly strangle each other.
Last month, an amendment to a sweeping immigration bill proposed the use of genetic testing to verify the bloodlines of would-be immigrants who want to join family members already living in France.
Instead, the initiative has been vilified for contradicting France's protective family and privacy laws and for stirring up memories of the ugliest period of modern French history, the collaborationist Vichy government during the Nazi occupation.
"This DNA test exists in 11 countries in Europe — including some Socialist ones, like Great Britain," Sarkozy said in a television interview last month. "How is it that it doesn't pose a problem in these countries, but it creates a debate here?"Time to start hiding the cars again, Pierre... in, say... England.
Initially, the amendment would have authorized French consular officials to offer a would-be immigrant the chance to pay for a DNA test to supplement suspicious or nonexistent documentation and prove close familial ties with a legal resident in France.
In the face of opposition, the National Assembly watered down the amendment, which was weakened further by the Senate and is still under discussion.
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LAST WORD: What could possibly go wrong?
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