Government spokesperson Olivier Véran estimated Tuesday that “the conditions for an agreement are emerging” in the National Assembly on the immigration bill, which the presidential camp is trying to rebalance, without undermining the right, after its hardening in the Senate.
A Senate that changes its mind?
The very sensitive immigration bill has been examined since Monday in the Law Committee, where the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin is seeking a compromise between the firmest LR deputies and the left wing of the majority which is calling for “humanism”.
“The metal is moving,” said Olivier Véran on franceinfo, recalling that “a few weeks ago, the Senate said ‘we, the right-wing Senate, will never vote for a text which would move towards regularization, even under conditions, of workers, even if they have been there for years in France, even if they have a job, even if they do not pose a problem, even if they are integrated. “And at the end of the day, they voted for a text which says approximately that”, he observed, “for us, the objective is to move from a text which says approximately it has a text that says that.”
LR deputies “who (teach) us a lesson”, judge Véran
Asked about the possibility of a referendum on immigration, the government spokesperson criticized LR president Éric Ciotti who is calling for a constitutional reform to modify the scope of the referendum and open it to societal questions such as immigration, and did not come to the meeting called by Emmanuel Macron in Saint-Denis on November 17.
The LR deputies “who did not come, (teach) us a lesson by saying ‘we want a referendum’: hey friends, we had to come!”. “You see political politics? Sometimes it can be deadly for those who practice it,” he said. As for the “left of government”, he considered that it was “intended to vote for this text because their own prefects tell them (…) that they need these tools”.