The French Parliament approved the new immigration law late this Tuesday, at the end of a very tense and chaotic day that has put President Emmanuel Macron and his Government in serious trouble. The favorable vote of the extreme right has been embarrassing for the government ranks. The head of state asked for a majority without the need for ultra votes, which he repudiates.
The new rule to regulate the flow and presence of foreigners obtained 214 votes in favor and 114 against in the Senate. In the National Assembly, the yeses totaled 349 compared to 186 noes. These apparently very loose majorities hide a very hard fight between the parties and a debate that has lasted for more than a year.
The Republicans (LR, traditional right) claimed an important victory, since they were the ones who finally negotiated a consensus text with Macron’s party, Renaissance. The president of LR, Éric Ciotti, was clear. “Today the Republicans, thanks to their work, their ideas, impose this text.” But Marine Le Pen, three times candidate for the Elysée for the National Regrouping (RN, far-right), also wanted to profit. According to the far-right leader, the result of the fight over immigration “is a great ideological victory for the RN” because they have assumed her postulates.
From the left, on the contrary, they accused the Government of having bowed to the right and Macron of having betrayed its principles. Deputy André Chassaigne spoke of the “text of shame.” The socialist Boris Vallaud considered what happened “a great moment of dishonor for the Government.”
The new law provides for tougher treatment of foreigners in an irregular situation, but also opens the possibility of regularization of those who work in sectors with a labor shortage, such as construction, gastronomy or the agricultural sector.
The right and the extreme right have managed to make family reunification rules more rigid and limit social aid and establish waiting periods for legal foreign immigrants, in the case of housing subsidies and others. Foreigners who do not work will have even more difficulty receiving this aid. This way of proceeding is called “national preference” (in favor of the French, in this case) and is problematic, because it is discriminatory, to the point that the Constitutional Council could repeal it.
Other concessions to the conservatives affect the right to land – the granting of nationality to the children of foreigners born in France will no longer be automatic – and those convicted of having killed an agent of authority such as a police officer may be stripped of their French citizenship. or a firefighter. To prevent student status from being a sewer for unwanted immigration, non-EU citizens who come to study will be required to pay a deposit. This money will only be returned to them if they leave the country when they complete their training. The crime of irregular residence is also established.
The center-left of Macronism has had to content itself with the regularization measure – although very restrictive and always decided at the discretion, case by case, by the prefects – and with another important point, the prohibition of administrative retention for irregular immigrants who are minors. .
