by Elizabeth Pineau
PARIS (Reuters) – The French Parliament adopted on Tuesday evening the bill on immigration, resulting from a joint joint committee, in a tougher version which caused unease among part of the presidential camp.
The National Assembly largely approved the text, by 349 votes against 186, an advance which allows the presidential camp to say that it was approved without the help of the National Rally (RN), which has 88 deputies.
The Senate, where the right is in the majority, adopted the text earlier in the evening, by 214 votes to 114.
“It’s really important to see that the parliamentary majority, but also the political allies that there were in this fight (…) showed that the majority was united and was able to adopt extremely strong measures on a text which is certainly not perfect”, reacted to the press, just after the vote, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, who accepted most of the modifications wanted by Les Républicains (LR), whose votes were his required.
The final version of the text was developed by a joint joint committee (CMP), made up of 14 deputies and senators reflecting the political colors of Parliament, on the basis of a Senate text that was significantly toughened compared to the initial version proposed. by the government.
Shortly after the announcement of the agreement at the CMP, the president of the RN group in the Assembly, Marine Le Pen, announced that she would vote for the bill in which she said she saw an “ideological victory” for her party, which the presidential camp denies.
On the left, the president of the socialist group in the National Assembly, Boris Vallaud, denounced “a CMP of shame, a great moment of dishonor for the government”, of which he castigated “the collusion with the theses of the extreme RIGHT”.
Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promise, this text on immigration – a subject of concern for the French according to opinion polls – was the subject of months of negotiations, going so far as to lead the opposition to band together to vote last week a rejection motion which deprived the National Assembly of debates.
“MOMENT OF TRUTH” IN THE MACRON CAMP
The content of the text and the support of the RN caused unease in part of the Macron camp, leading 27 deputies (20 Renaissance, five MoDem and two Horizons) to vote against, including Sacha Houlié, Renaissance president of the Law Commission and member of the CMP. Around thirty abstained.
According to several media, ministers with left-wing sensibilities, including those of Health and Transport, Aurélien Rousseau and Clément Beaune, have threatened to resign.
“This is the moment of truth,” Renaissance MP from the left Patrick Vignal, who for his part voted in favor of the text, told Reuters before the vote.
Emmanuel Macron brought together Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, the group presidents and party leaders of the majority at the Elysée in the evening “in order to take stock of the situation”, reported the Presidency of the Republic.
One of the most delicate points of the text concerned the payment of social benefits to foreigners in a legal situation, ultimately subject to a five-year waiting period for people not working, which its detractors consider to be the illustration of an unacceptable “national preference”.
The text includes a number of measures moving towards a clear tightening of reception conditions for immigrants in France, including the introduction of an offense of illegal residence and a deposit prior to the installation of foreign students. .
It also provides for the forfeiture of nationality for dual nationals who have been sentenced to sentences exceeding ten years for crimes against members of the police.
In terms of employment, it also gives prefects the power to regularize undocumented immigrants in sectors with recruitment difficulties, such as construction and catering. More than 7,000 people would be affected, according to the government.
After the vote in the CMP, around fifty associations, unions and NGOs, including the Human Rights League, denounced in a press release the bill “the most regressive in at least forty years for the rights and conditions of life of foreign people, including those who have been in France for a long time.”
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, with Benjamin Mallet, Bertrand Boucey and Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Kate Entringer and Jean Terzian)
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