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French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said there are too many foreigners in France and the system for integrating them is "working more and more badly".
In a TV debate, Mr Sarkozy defended his plan to almost halve the number of new arrivals if re-elected next month.
Mr Sarkozy is trailing in the opinion polls behind the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande.
He is also competing for conservative voters with the far-right National Front party led by Marine le Pen.
The president said while immigration could be a boon for France, it needed to be controlled more tightly through tougher qualification rules for residency.
Mr Sarkozy, whose father was a Hungarian immigrant, also said he wanted to restrict some benefit payments to immigrants who had been in the country for 10 years.