Macron compromises on the right to implement an immigration overhaul
The French parliament on Tuesday evening approved an immigration reform that was tightened under pressure from the right. That assured President Emmanuel Macron a legislative victory but risked a political crisis for a leader twice elected on centrist vows to keep far-right populism at bay.
Hours after the bill was passed by the French Senate, it received 349 votes to 186 during a raucous overnight session in the National Assembly, the lower house, where Macron’s centrist party and its allies do not take an absolute position. majority.
In a rare sign of dissent, 37 of Macron’s own party members voted against the bill or abstained, as did 22 lawmakers from other parties in his alliance. The far right declared its support for the government’s proposals in an equally rare move, with all 88 lawmakers voting in favor.
Both moves have put Macron in an extremely uncomfortable position: between a looming internal uprising and what the French news media have called a “kiss of death” from the far-right National Rally party and its leader, Marine Le Pen.
In an apparent attempt to resolve that tension, Gérald Darmanin, the French Interior Minister, announced before the outcome that “there will be no bill if there is no majority without the National Rally.”
The move was interpreted to mean that Macron would only issue the new law if it could have been passed even without the support of the far right, as was the case on Tuesday.
“The majority stood united,” said Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said on social media platform X after the vote. “The National Rally maneuver failed. Tonight only the common good won.”
But the vote threw Macron’s government into turmoil and exposed rifts in his party, and it was not immediately clear how he planned to strengthen his majority after a tumultuous day that ended with French news media speculating that several of its ministers planned to resign if the elections were to take place. bill passed.
The bill creates one-year temporary residence permits for skilled workers in sectors where labor shortages exist under certain conditions and streamlines the asylum procedure, but it also tightens the rules allowing foreigners to work, live or study in France.
It ensures that foreigners only become eligible for state subsidies such as housing aid or family benefits after they have lived in France for several months or even years; makes it more difficult for immigrants to legally transfer family members; and forces foreign students to pay new visa fees.
The vote took place a week after the lower house shocked the government by unexpectedly rejecting an earlier version of the bill, which the left deemed too harsh and the right and far right declared too lenient.
To break the impasse, Macron’s government has persuaded conservative lawmakers with tougher measures that enraged the left, angered some of Macron’s allies and prompted the National Rally, France’s most prominent far-right party, to gleefully proclaim that it is won the battle for World War II. ideas.
The party has long argued that French citizens should have preferential or even exclusive access to government subsidies and aid, and that foreigners should have limited or no access to such benefits.
Ms. Le Pen, the far-right anti-immigration leader, said Tuesday after a joint committee of senators and representatives drafted a compromise that cleared the way for that evening’s votes. there is still a lot to do.”
But Ms Le Pen, who leads National Rally lawmakers in the lower house, added: “In principle, I think it is a great ideological victory for our movement.”
Although Macron has cast himself as a centrist defender of liberal democracy, critics say his decision to support a bill that reflects many right-wing, anti-immigration beliefs has shattered that image.
“In 2022, after he was elected, he said: ‘I won’t forget all the people who voted for me because they wanted to oppose Marine Le Pen,’” said Vincent Martigny, a professor of political science at the University of Nice. . “Now he is doing the opposite and paving the way for her.”
Lawmakers for an alliance of left-wing socialist and green parties in the lower house addressed the government ahead of the vote. One of the lawmakers, André Chassaigne, said Macron was elected on a promise to “protect us from the worst” of the far right.
“Today you went from shield to springboard,” Mr. Chassaigne said.
Macron’s government rejected the criticism, arguing that a lack of strong immigration reforms had fueled the far right.
“What causes extremist forces to rise?” This was said by Mr Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior. “It’s a lack of solutions.”
The government said stricter immigration rules are needed to keep French people safe, for example by making it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes, and pointed to measures in the bill that the far right rejects, such as a ban on detaining minors centers for illegal immigrants.
Unlike Macron’s pension reform, which raised the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 and was unpopular from start to finish, recent polls show that roughly 60 to 80 percent of French people support stricter immigration rules, similar to those in his bill.
When the immigration proposal was unveiled over a year ago, the government had presented it as one of Macron’s signature “simultaneity” bills – a centrist attempt to strike a balance between firmness and openness. But opposition parties broadly rejected it.
The government could have used a constitutional tool to get the immigration bill through the House of Commons without a vote, as it did with the pension review. But the move was dismissed as a strong-arm tactic, and the government wanted to pass the immigration law in a more democratic manner.
To do so, it received support from the conservative Republican Party, which has 62 lawmakers in the lower house.
The Republicans, who themselves increasingly aligned themselves with the far right on immigration, pushed for a stricter bill, for example by making temporary residence permits for workers in fields with labor shortages a rare exception, and not an automatic right.
“We have been fighting for this for months, I would even say years,” Éric Ciotti, the head of the Republicans, told reporters on Tuesday.
But unions, migrant advocacy groups and humanitarian aid organizations say that measures such as imposing a fine on undocumented migrants will make integration of foreigners more difficult, and that limiting access to benefits is a betrayal of the universalist social model of France.
The Defender of the Country’s Rights, an independent ombudsman who oversees civil and human rights, warned Parliament that the bill “seriously undermines the principle of equality and non-discrimination, the basis of our republic.”
After a small protest at the National Assembly on Tuesday afternoon, Aboubacar Dembele, an undocumented worker who arrived in France in 2018, said that “the law nullifies everything – human rights, asylum laws, immigrant rights.”
Juliette Gueron-Gabrielle reporting contributed.