Paris - The French government will lobby hard to have at least four more permanent members added to the UN Security Council and to transform the G8 into a G13, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday. Saying, "You cannot organize the world of the 21st century with the organization of the 20th," Sarkozy told journalists in Paris that the French government would do "everything in its power" to have China, India, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil join the G8 and to see that Germany, Japan, India and "a large African nation" be granted permanent seats on the Security Council.
In his first major domestic press conference since taking office in May, Sarkozy also laid out his projects for France's six-month presidency of the European Union, which begins on July 1.
"When our presidency is over, I want Europe to have an immigration policy, an energy policy, an environment policy and a defence policy," Sarkozy said.
In addition, the French president said he would apply to Europe the same "policy of civilization" he was attempting to implement in France.
This policy consisted, among other things, of a "democratization" and "humanization" of government and a will to protect economic interests against speculators, he said.
Sarkozy also called for changes in the way the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund carry out their missions, and said that France would continue to be involved in Lebanon and the Mideast.
In the wide-ranging press conference addressed primarily at the French electorate ahead of upcoming municipal elections, Sarkozy said his government would impose in France an immigration policy based on quotas "negotiated with the countries of origin."
Sarkozy also said that he would create a group of experts to change the instruments of measure for economic growth, and that he had charged two Nobel Prize winners - Joseph Stiglitz of the United States and Amartya Sen of India - to aid him in the project.
In addition, Sarkozy said that the French government would not shy away from implementing protectionist measures regarding its companies.
"In the face of the growing power of speculative and extremely aggressive investment funds, and independent funds that do not act according to economic logic, there is no question that France will not react," he said.
He also said that he would re-launch the project of a "Greater Paris" that is to make of the French capital "the most beautiful city in the world.
"The situation of the Paris agglomeration has become unbearable," he said. "The hardships it imposes on a too large number of people ... are no longer tolerable."
Sarkozy said he would seek to alter the preamble of the French constitution by inscribing in it gender equality, bioethics and ethnic diversity as inalienable rights.
