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Squeezed on a row of narrow mattresses, hundreds of African immigrants are refusing to move from a gym outside Paris, fueling a heated immigration debate ahead of the 2007 presidential election. Immigration and poverty are set to be major issues in the 2007 poll after angry youths -- many of them descendants of immigrants -- rioted in poor suburbs last year. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservatives' presidential frontrunner, tightened French immigration rules in reaction to the riots and decided to expel thousands of illegal immigrants this year. Dozens of illegal immigrants were arrested to be sent back to their country of origin and others agreed to be housed in hotels.
