Mayalène Tremolet // Photo credit: Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP
While the riots have been shaking France for a week, in the National Assembly, the time has come for sanctions against offenders and solutions to prevent these events from happening again. Among the tracks, the right of the hemicycle would like to toughen the immigration bill which is due to arrive soon. But the executive is not receptive.
After the riots, time for reflection for Parliamentarians. How to rebuild and ensure that these events do not happen again? The question is thorny for the State, which has been investing heavily in neighborhoods for years, without too many results. In the National Assembly, deputies want a parliamentary response to the thugs. The right-wing parties are asking for more firmness in the immigration bill, but on the executive side, there is no question of changing a single line of the project.
A link between immigration and riots?
Because the line of the government wants to be clear: there is no link between riots and immigration. For the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the only question is that of urban violence. “Less than 10% of the almost 4,000 arrested were foreigners and 90% were French. The question today is that of young offenders, not foreigners,” he insisted.
But the distinction is not to the taste of the Republicans. The right has indeed been waiting for several months for the presentation of a comprehensive immigration bill, which would also be a response to the violence of the last few days according to LR deputy Eric Pauget.
A difficult equation for the majority
“Yes, they are French, but who are French people of origin from waves of migration and who have created communities, communitarianism. What is happening in our country at the moment, unfortunately, is that there will be more new sequences like that because, as long as we do not send a message of firmness on the control of these migratory flows, we will have this kind of situation”, judges the elected official.
The equation therefore remains a priori the same as before the riots. If the government does not toughen up its bill, then it will not be able to count on the votes of the right, which is essential to have its text voted on at the Palais Bourbon.