Not that they have a solution other than closing the doors and adopting some questionable integration approaches, but Europe's political mainstream has now accepted anti-immigration as an issue, according to Time. The latest to embrace it is French presidential hopeful Nicholas Sarkozy who has tabled a new immigration bill which will be debated this week. Of course, the usual suspects have taken to the streets to protest the Sarkozy proposals:

More than 5,000 protesters took the streets on Saturday against a draft immigration law that imposes tougher conditions on foreigners seeking to work in France.

The protests come ahead of a parliamentary debate on Tuesday on the bill by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and which church leaders, immigrant support groups and the left-wing opposition have criticised as discriminating against the poor.

The law would make it harder for immigrants to bring relatives to France, force newcomers to take French and civics lessons and end their automatic right to a long-term residence permit after 10 years in France.

It’s hard to see how these sort of proposals can ever be wholesale rejected, as there is absolutely no political capital in standing up for immigration from outside fortress Europe. Although there is a definite need to import human capital, there is a knee-jerk reaction from traditional left-of-center voters out of a deep fear that especially Eastern European immigrants will be a little bit too competitive on Europe’s well protected and generous job markets. It’s called the Polish Plumber syndrome. On the right, safety and security tend to be the articles that help move the electorate, but following Europe’s initial encounters with jihadist violence and intolerant Muslims the appetite to import labor from the Middle East and North Africa is running thin across the entire political spectrum.

Sarkozy’s legislation will follow the European trend and will most likely be adopted without much controversy.