You are missing the main point which is that this proposal only applies to Brits! So blatantly unfair to other 3rd country nationals.
And nothing to do with raising the drawbridge; nothing changes at all in that respect so Brits can still settle here if they wish. This particular proposal doesn’t affect that at all!
(Whilst a fun debate, it is most likely totally irrelevant as I don’t see this proposals going anywhere as France (in the form of the French Government rather than a single senator) doesn’t want it at all. )
I think so Porridge, France is in the Schengen Area. So no more than France can do independent trade deals, I think visiting rules should be EU wide too, otherwise a uncoordinated mishmash will arise. Maybe a better reciprocal deal on people movement could be negotiated when the ERG gets kicked out?
I think that’s the answer to “Will France be able to …?”, because I can’t see the law actually coming into effect. I imagine the constitutional council (if I have the name right) will make exactly that point.
Well, all they need to do is get their countries to join the EU, then attempt to destroy themselves by leaving it, and they too may be able to get a few morsels of hope for their second home owners too.
Had assumed that was what you intended, but couldn’t resist the temptation…
Interesting though, in SW France, I assume most Jews came up from post-Islamic Spain, escaping the Inquisition. Which of course is an illustration of the paradox, that before the creation of the State of Israel by Christian nations, Jews and Muslims had co-existed peacefully for well over a thousand years and that it was only when Christians intervened (whether via El Cid or post- Nuremburg) that things went badly wrong
Yes the Middle East is a mess caused largely by Western tinkering due to their interests in oil and gas - the Sykes-Picot deal that carved up the ME/NE between Britain and France in 1916, et al…
I must admit the idea that it should just be for Brits struck me as iniquitous - why not all 2nd home owners?
Mind you stuff like this is not exactly without precedent in the EU - don’t the Greeks still have their “spend 250k€ on a property and we’ll give you a residence permit” scheme going?
Edit: it’s gone up to 500k€ to reduce the effect on local property prices and there’s a general move to ditch these residency or citizenship for €€€ schemes.
Really, got some examples of the world being screwed up because of an atheist policy.
Anyway, most people are theists of one sort of another - out of the world’s 8 billion or so people only half a billion or so are atheists. We’re very much in the minority.
Well, I was largely teasing, but there is no shortage of examples. @Ancient_Mariner has already mentioned North Korea; China is pretty unpleasant to those who disagree with the régime (which means Christianity is thriving); Angola; Albania …
If you believe this world is all there is, you’re just as likely as people with a faith in a God - perhaps more likely, because you have no possibility of a moral absolute - to pursue policies which advance your aims and harm people.
At least you can point out (as Mark did) to Christians that what they do is at odds with what their faith teaches.
This really makes me smile, that only those of faith have a fully functioning moral compass. Personally, I do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not through fear of a celestial being. Even the most casual glance through history will demonstrate the great evils that have been delivered by people of faith and atheists have been far from the majority players in atrocity.
Why on earth should France be obliged to treat every TCN equally?
