The French Constitutional Council has censored this Thursday, in whole or in part, more than a third of the 86 articles of the new immigration law that was voted by Parliament last month. The so-called “nine wise men”, the highest arbitration body, thus overturned most of the harshest measures towards immigrants and asylum seekers that had been introduced by the right in Parliament and applauded by the extreme right.
Among the censored points is the differential – and discriminatory – treatment of immigrants to receive social benefits, restrictions on family reunification and the setting of a deposit to be paid by non-EU students to guarantee that they return to their country after finishing their training. . The establishment of immigration quotas has not received approval either.
The ruling of the Constitutional Council represents a serious institutional slap to the politicians, both to President Emmanuel Macron and to the Government and the opposition, for having finally built, in a chaotic manner, a consensus on a proposal that was unviable according to the current Magna Carta. . The most serious thing is that Macron himself and his Government were aware that a text was being voted on that contained unconstitutional provisions. They admitted it publicly. In short, El Constitucional reveals considerable political botching that could take its toll in the European elections in June.
Of the 86 articles of the law, 32 do not pass the test because they are considered to encompass aspects that were sneaked into the text but do not have a sufficient relationship with the matter that was intended to be legislated, which go beyond the immigration issue that is the object of the law. Three are censured for not complying with the Constitution. Two others are rejected due to lack of form.
The Government tried to put a good face on the bad weather by highlighting that many aspects of the Government’s original text have been maintained, such as the device to regularize irregular immigrants who work in sectors with a labor shortage, something to which the right He resisted and ended up accepting, although with many restrictions.
The president of the National Regroupment (RN, extreme right) and candidate for the European elections, Jordan Bardella, considered that what happened was “a coup of force by the judges, with the support of the President of the Republic himself,” and regretted that censored “the measures of firmness.” “The immigration law is stillborn,” Bardella concluded on the X network (formerly Twitter)
