PARIS, March 1: With 700 illegal Chinese immigrants detained in the past four weeks alone at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, China has suddenly become the single largest source of illegal aliens in France. Their numbers are so large that there is no longer sufficient place to house them at the airport itself.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is to fly to Beijing later this month in an attempt to negotiate an accord with regard to immigration from China just as he did last autumn with Romania — an agreement that has seen Romanian NGOs come to France in an attempt to settle the problem of their illegal aliens and encourage them to return to their country.

Two Boeing B737 aircraft are already in the process of being chartered by the French government, once Mr Sarkozy’s visit to Beijing is over, in order to fly the aliens back home.