Hollande opens French doors to refugees despite opposition

France is ready to take in 24,000 refugees as part of European Union plans to welcome more than 100,000 in the next two years, French President Francois Hollande said on Monday, dismissing opinion polls showing public opposition to the move.

Hollande said he and German leader Angela Merkel wanted the 28-country EU to back a "permanent, mandatory system" under which each country would be obliged to take its fair share of a total of 120,000 migrants.

"This is a crisis, and it is a grave and dramatic one. It can be brought under control and it will be," he told a news conference.

Asked about polls showing 55 percent of French people oppose admitting more refugees or easing asylum procedures to cope with the EU's migration crisis, Hollande said public opinion was fickle but asylum was a constitutional right and a moral duty.

France's image and standing in the world were at stake, he said.

He also urged Britain to take its fair share of the burden, linking the issue implicitly to London's bid to renegotiate its relationship with the EU before a referendum due by end 2017.

"Everyone must understand: you can't ask for solidarity when there's a problem and then exempt yourself from doing your duty when there is a solution," Hollande said after pointing to Franco-British cooperation to cope with migrants trying to storm the Channel Tunnel to reach Britain.

The Socialist president said France was ready to take 1,000 refugees immediately from among those flooding into Germany, to show solidarity with its closest European partner.

But he stressed his country of 65 million would not be able to absorb migrants on the same scale as Germany because it faced neither the demand from asylum-seekers nor the same demographic and economic situation as Berlin.

France was also determined to deal with the causes of the refugee exodus from the Middle East, Asia and Africa by stepping up action against Islamic State militants who have captured swathes of Syria and Iraq, he said, and hosting an international conference on supporting refugees nearer to their homes.

The French air force, already part of a coalition waging air strikes against IS in Iraq, would start reconnaissance flights over Syria this week that could lead to strikes in that country too, Hollande said, ruling out sending in ground forces.

Britain is also considering joining U.S.-led coalition bombing raids on IS in Syria.

(Reuters)