France's incumbent president and Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate for 2012 presidential election Nicolas Sarkozy arrives on stage to deliver a speech during a campaign meeting on March 11, 2012 in Villepinte.
“At a time of economic crisis, if Europe doesn’t pick those who can enter its borders, it won’t be able to finance its welfare state any longer. We can’t leave the management of migration flows to technocrats and tribunals.”— campaign rally, March 11, 2012, vowing to renegotiate and tighten the European Union’s internal Schengen border treaty, or pull France from it.
Under the treaty, signatory states still decide which non-EU travelers and immigrants they allow visit or reside within their states—after which time legal aliens may circulate freely within the Schengen area. Despite Sarkozy’s rhetoric, EU technocrats and courts don’t manage national migration choices.