Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has called for the suspension of a key European Union accord allowing people and goods to move freely between the economic bloc's countries—the latest sign of rising anti-EU sentiment ahead of parliamentary elections this weekend, reports The Wall Street Journal.
In an editorial published Thursday in French weekly news magazine Le Point, Mr. Sarkozy took aim at the Schengen accord, an important building block of the EU. For nearly two decades, the agreement has made travel around Europe essentially borderless for both EU residents and the multitudes of undocumented migrants that have fueled debate throughout the election season.
"We must immediately suspend Schengen," Mr. Sarkozy wrote, according to excerpts released by Le Point just days before French voters head to the polls to vote for a new European Parliament.
Across the EU, far-right parties are garnering support from voters worried that an influx of immigrants is tearing at the EU's social fabric and adding further strain to the bloc's weakened economies. Polls show Mr. Sarkozy's center-right UMP and President François Hollande's ruling Socialist party trailing the far-right National Front party, led by firebrand Marine Le Pen.
Freedom of movement inside the EU has made it easy for undocumented migrants from Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East to settle in core EU countries like France and Germany once they have slipped past the bloc's porous borders.
The richest EU countries tend to rely on often poorer ones at the bloc's edges, like Greece and Italy, to shield the Continent from illegal immigration. The borders of those peripheral countries, however, are marked by vast stretches of sea that are too costly for individual nations to secure on their own.
Read more of this report from The Wall Street Journal.