Only four days left to find a compromise: Elisabeth Borne held numerous meetings on Thursday, with the right and then with her majority, to find common ground on the immigration bill, even if it meant giving up on the regularization of illegal immigrants. papers. The marathon continues in Matignon. Like the day before, the Prime Minister first received the Republican leaders to resume negotiations. But these, reinforced, stick to their positions.
After rejecting the scenario of a reform reduced to only repressive measures facilitating the expulsion of foreign offenders, Eric Ciotti and his troops once again “confirmed (their) desire to see the Senate text adopted”, a very right-wing starting point of the Joint Commission (CMP) convened Monday at 5 p.m. A decisive meeting where LR presents itself “in group order”, affirms MP Annie Genevard, who will sit among the 14 parliamentarians of this body with the intention “to succeed but not at any price”. At a pinch, a few “moves” but “not abandonments in the open countryside”, she warns.
Frenzy of consultations
In the process, Elisabeth Borne spoke with the executives of the Macronist camp, then the boss of the centrist group Liot Bertrand Pancher, before summoning her main ministers to rue de Varenne for a “follow-up point”, then going to the meeting of its relative majority in the Assembly at the end of the day. A frenzy of consultations intended to adjust the “red lines” adopted Wednesday evening by the Renaissance deputies, who refused any concession on state medical aid, land rights or the retention of minors under sixteen years of age.
On the other hand, they have resigned themselves to regularizations on a case-by-case basis, at the discretion of the prefects, for undocumented workers in professions in shortage, hoping that this will be done “without necessarily going through the employer”, a indicated their leader Sylvain Maillard. This article will be maintained “as far as possible”, even argued Sacha Houlié, herald of the left wing of the macronie, obliged to admit that the majority leaves “unquestionably” with a handicap in these “tough” and “tough” negotiations. difficult”.
The chairman of the Assembly’s Law Committee, who will chair the CMP in this capacity, however warned the Republicans against “the immodesty of saying that ‘it’s their text or nothing'”. But the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has a completely different view. Despite the snub of the rejection motion on Monday, he considered it “obvious that we must get closer to the Senate’s text.” “The only one adopted by the representatives of the French people,” insisted another ex-LR, his Economy counterpart Bruno Le Maire.
A vote from Tuesday in the event of a compromise
Because it is the executive that plays the biggest role. In the event of failure, the bill would be abandoned, Emmanuel Macron not wishing to force through a 49.3, even though the Constitutional Council did not close the door to this possibility, in a decision rendered Thursday evening. In the meantime, his Prime Minister has used it again – on the 2024 budget – for the 21st time since his arrival at Matignon.
In the event of a compromise on a text on immigration, the vote in both houses of Parliament would take place on Tuesday. But if the result leans too far to the right, part of the left wing of Renaissance and the MoDem could fail during the vote and trigger a crisis within the macronie. The adoption of the text could then depend on the National Rally deputies, who are not involved in the negotiations. However, the far-right party has already warned that it “will not be able to vote for it” if the “regularization measures” are maintained. Its sole representative at the CMP even received a “mandate” to “blow up pro-immigration measures”.
Marginalized, the left is ironic, like the leader of the socialist deputies Boris Vallaud denouncing the compromises of a majority which “no longer has red lines”. A development which worries the director of the France Terre d’Asile association, Delphine Rouilleault, for whom “the mad race for adoption seems launched on the backs of foreigners”.