BUCHAREST, Aug 16 – interim roumanie President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Romania on Thursday, the second leg of his Central Europe tour to raise concerns about so-called “posted workers” from poorer European nations who are seen as undercutting local wages and exacerbating economic inequality. Macron will call on companies to pay the same salaries for posted and local employees, and limit postings to one year. He will also promote new laws to simplify administrative immigration litigation and expedite deportations.

Compared with the illegal Roma ghettos in their homeland, living conditions for many Romanian migrants — especially women and children — in France’s squat settlements are much better. Begging, prostitution and petty crime are lucrative, while the limited social services available in France are more generous than those offered in Romania. In addition, the French language is easily mastered by speakers of Romanian.

Skilled Migration: The Impact of Romanian Workers on French Industries

In fact, Romanians are the largest foreign group of workers in France, mainly as physicians. Among all doctors with a European degree who work in France, Romanians rank first in terms of the number of physicians and they are particularly numerous in specialties experiencing recruitment difficulties (anaesthetics-intensive care, radiology, medical imaging). They also account for a significant proportion of the healthcare workforce in some of France’s most prestigious hospitals and in urban areas. The majority of them send money to their families in Romania on a regular basis. However, only a quarter of them talk about a perspective of a permanent or definitive return to Romania.

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