French far-right leader visits immigrant landing point
FOCUS News Agency
1 July 2007 | 14:29 |
Rome. French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen will on Thursday visit the Italian Mediterranean island of Lampedusa which is a common landing point for illegal immigrants hoping to reach Europe, sources said, cited by AFP .
He will be accompanied by a delegation of similarly-minded European Parliament lawmakers, as part of a four-day fact-finding trip organised by the far-right parliamentary group Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty.
The website of neo-fascist Italian party Fiamma Tricolore said the trip was aimed at “finding solutions to the serious problem of illegal immigration in Italy, an entry point for uncontrolled flows of migration in Europe”.
The National Front, Le Pen's party, confirmed the trip would take place between Monday and Thursday.
The far-right leader will be accompanied by European lawmakers from Italy, France, Belgium, Bulgaria and Romania.
Lampedusa, a tiny island located about 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Sicily and about 300 kilometres north of Libya, is a key transit point for immigrants trying to reach Europe.
Last year, about 22,000 would-be immigrants arrived in Italy by sea.
