France Tightens Up Immigration Restrictions: Immigrants Who Came in After July Must Leave: Jewish in

No labour permits are to be issued to immigrants who have come into France after July 1st., 1930, says a ministerial decree which has been issued by the new Laval government. Recent immigrants are thus deprived of the possibility of earning a livelihood, and will consequently by the force of economic pressure have to leave the country. With practically all countries barred against immigration, there seems to be no place where they can go. The Jewish institutions here are endeavouring to obtain a modification of the new regulation in favour of those immigrants who are already in the country, but very little hope is held out of success, in view of the growing economic difficulties in France.

French Jewry began to grow anxious over the immigration situation last June, when the then Prime Minister, M. Tardieu, suggested that the unemployment situation in France was becoming so serious that there would have to be a restriction of immigration. The statement was followed by a powerful anti-immigration campaign in the French press, some papers demanding a complete stoppage of all immigration of persons seeking employment in the country.

France has for a long time been practically the only country in Europe which has freely permitted immigration, and has been able to find openings for considerable numbers of Jewish immigrants during the last few years. It was not until the United States of America closed its doors to immigration in 1924 that France began to become a centre of Jewish immigration, and since then a very considerable community of Jews from the former Russian Empire has been built up in the country.

In addition to a liberal immigration policy, France has also been very liberal in regard to naturalisation, and thousands of foreign Jews who have settled in the country since the war have been able to become citizens.