The French government has announced a series of measures designed to persuade illegal immigrants from Morocco, Mali and Senegal to return home.

They're being offered a three-month career training programme, financial help and the right to re-enter France once they are established back home.

The new initiative applies to about twenty-thousand illegal immigrants who had been refused residence permits and in theory, faced forcible expulsion.

A BBC correspondent in Paris says it's cheaper for the government to provide the new incentives than to expel the immigrants.