The World around Us. Любинская Н.А. - 27 стр.

country does its best to keep out non-EU migrants. Meanwhile, thousands are
smuggled in from Africa, the Middle East and Asia to swell the ranks of the sans-
papiers – those who have no identity papers to give them a right to residence.
       Once arrived, illegal immigrants are unlikely to leave. That holds true
even of the minority who are arrested. In 2000, for example, some 43,739 for-
eigners were given their marching orders, but only 9,230 were expelled. In 1996,
when the right was cracking down, some 28,000 foreigners with the wrong pa-
pers or no papers were arrested in Paris – but 22,000 were quickly released and
only 1,700 left the country.
       So what will Mr. Sarkozy’s balanced policy amount to? Though there will
surely be no blanket legalization of the kind advocated by Jack Lang, a former
Socialist minister, to end “inhumane and absurd situations”, a great many of the
sans-papiers will probably get their papers, and perhaps sooner rather than later.
One reason is that Mr. Sarkozy, saying the authorities previously acted with
“excessive administrative zeal”, is setting a new tone. The police chief of Paris,
for example, now promises to look “case by case” at demands for legal status,
and to do so with “pragmatism and humanity”.
       The second reason is that the rules have already proved flexible enough to al-
low for such pragmatism and humanity: of the 140,000 foreigners who sought to
“regularize” their status when the left came to power in 1997, some 80,000 suc-
ceeded. Marriage to a French citizen; children born in France; severe ill-health; “per-
sonal or family links in France”; or simply residence, albeit illegal, in France for ten
years or more: all these can give a sans-papier the right to reside. As long as the civil
servant making the decision did not vote for the immigrants’ foe, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
                                                  (The Economist. 2005. September)

A. Comprehension
I. Match the following words (1–10) with definitions (a–j)
 1. hostage              a.    send or force smbd away
 2. dislodge             b.    a person captured and held as a prisoner
 3. asylum-seeker        c.    force somebody to leave a previously occu-
                               pied place
 4. refuge               d.    although
 5. hypocrisy            e.    shelter or protection from danger, storm or
                               trouble
 6. smuggle              f.    pretending better than one actually is
 7. swell the ranks      g.    take or send smth or smbd illegally across
                               the border
 8. expel                h.    a person who has left his country for politi-
                               cal reasons and is looking for protection of
                               the other state
 9. zeal                 i.    increase the number
 10. albeit              j.    great energy and enthusiasm
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