Alexandre Chauveau with AFP / Photo credit: Andrea Savorani Neri / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP
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7:39 p.m., April 11, 2024
The Constitutional Council on Thursday rejected LR’s request for a referendum on immigration, considering that the measures proposed by the right represent a “disproportionate attack” on the rights to social protection of foreigners in a legal situation.
The Constitutional Council on Thursday rejected LR’s request for a referendum on immigration, considering that the measures proposed by the right represent a “disproportionate attack” on the rights to social protection of foreigners in a legal situation.
In the eyes of the Wise Men, whose decision sets jurisprudence, subordinating “the benefit of social benefits” to a condition of residence in France for a period of at least five years for those who do not work and 30 months for others. “disproportionate attack” on the “rights to social protection” of legally resident foreigners.
The Council is not opposed in principle to conditions of residence or activity to access certain benefits, but judges that the measures proposed by the Les Républicains (LR) party do not respect the “legal guarantees”, particularly in matters of of “national solidarity policy in favor of disadvantaged people”.
The text censored by the Sages at the end of January
The Sages have already accepted in the past residence conditions to access active solidarity income (RSA), but they believe that the benefits targeted by LR, such as housing assistance or family allowances, are not of the same nature. LR had launched this request for a shared initiative referendum on immigration, after the broad censorship of the Constitutional Council on the immigration bill in January.
The Sages then censored the main right-wing additions to the initial text, not in substance, but in form. According to them, the right’s restrictive measures on access to social benefits represented “legislative cavaliers”, unrelated to the initial bill.
On Thursday, the Constitutional Council this time ruled on the merits. It blocks the path to what the left denounced as a form of “national preference”. In January, the Sages came under a series of criticism from the right and the far right after the widespread censorship of the immigration bill. LR and RN had called for a revision of the Constitution.