Alexandre Chauveau with AFP / Photo credits: Alain JOCARD / AFP
Debates in the Senate on the immigration bill continue. Tuesday evening, senators adopted the transformation of State Medical Aid (AME) into emergency medical aid. But most of the discussions revolved around whether or not to maintain Article 3, which provides for the creation of a residence permit for professions in shortage.
Cross on the creation of residence permits for professions in shortage
Two days of bitter debates in the hemicycle allowed the upper house to seriously tighten the screws on government reform and reach a behind-the-scenes agreement between the right and the centrists on the most tense measure , Article 3. This provision aimed at granting a one-year renewable residence permit to undocumented workers in sectors with a labor shortage will be examined from late Wednesday afternoon, in accordance with a reorganization of the schedule of debates announced overnight.
The centrist group and the Republicans, who form the senatorial majority, struggled to agree on this measure of integration through work but their compromise should lead to its removal. In exchange, the Republicans agree to include in the law the Valls circular which gives prefects the power to regularize but by imposing a tightening of these criteria. “The idea is to impose on prefects an examination not only of professional activity but that they are able to integrate into our society, that they respect our way of life, that they have never been convicted. I consider that it is therefore an excellent solution”, explained Bruno Retailleau, president of the LR group in the Senate.
Abolition of state medical aid
During the night, the Minister of the Interior obtained in the Senate the reinstatement of a government integration measure aimed at forcing employers to arrange working time for certain foreign employees to allow them to take French lessons.
Tuesday afternoon, right and center were already lined up to vote for the abolition of state medical aid (AME), transformed into “emergency medical aid” by a large vote of 200 votes for and 136 against. The government, torn on this issue in recent weeks, “is very attached to the AME”, a “public health device”, declared Ms. Firmin Le Bodo, who came to support Gérald Darmanin, omnipresent on this text, for this aspect.
Emergency medical aid refocused on the management of “serious illnesses”
For more than 20 years, the AME has provided full coverage of medical and hospital costs granted to foreigners in an irregular situation present in France for at least three months. The emergency medical aid voted by the Senate, if it came into force, would be “refocused” on the management of “serious illnesses and acute pain”, reducing the basket of care currently granted to some 400,000 beneficiaries.
The Senate measure, described as an “article of shame” by the left, also includes pregnancy-related care, vaccinations and preventive medicine examinations. The right justifies it by the risks of “draft” that according to it the AME represents, as well as its cost: around 1.2 billion euros.
The senatorial majority therefore remained faithful to its desire to toughen the government’s text, already itself determined to demonstrate “firmness” on the repressive aspect, which notably plans to facilitate the expulsions of “delinquent” foreigners. The Senate thus continued its work on Tuesday evening, for example by reinstating the offense of illegal stay (removed in 2012), punishable only by a fine.