President Emmanuel Macron affirmed on Wednesday that the law on immigration adopted Tuesday by Parliament constitutes “a shield that we lacked” and that the text represents a response to the problems which “feed” the ambitions of the National Rally.
After the resignation of the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau following the vote on the text, he said “to respect (his decision) and I also have a lot of respect for all the deputies of the majority who voted for a law which was not a law of which they liked all the provisions,” said the head of state on France 5.
The adoption of this controversial bill on immigration, voted for by the far right which claims an “ideological victory”, has fractured the presidential majority.
For Emmanuel Macron, the bill “is a text which remains useful”, and certain provisions “even if they do not please, do not justify blocking everything”.
The Head of State thus considered that the deposit that will be requested from foreign students was “not a good idea”, because “we need to continue to attract talent and students from all over the world”.
To prevent the RN from coming to power, we “must address the problems that fuel it” and “show that there is a response in the republican field consistent with our values”, he continued.
“It is not true” that the text includes “provisions which are of a National Rally nature”, he added, specifying that the law aimed “very clearly” to discourage illegal immigration.
The Head of State thus assures that the adoption of the bill constitutes on the contrary “a defeat” for Marine Le Pen’s party, in response to accusations of compromise with the far right.
But if he believes that there is “an immigration problem” in France, we are not “overwhelmed by immigration”, he affirmed.