PARIS - The French government prepared yesterday for a new parliamentary debate on its tough anti immigration Bill after an impressive protest campaign that has embarrassed ministers culminated at the weekend in a mass march in Paris by tens of thousands.
The Debre Bill is due to go for a second reading debate tomorrow in the National Assembly, but on Saturday up to 100,000 people - film stars, students, trade unionists and intellectuals - took the debate into the streets to demand the Bill's total withdrawal.
Meanwhile on the orders of Paris city authorities, riot police ordered hundreds of illegal immigrants who had occupied a church in the north east Belleville area of Paris which has a large Asian population - to quit the building before dawn yesterday.