No immigration law will therefore be presented before the fall. The bill carried by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, will not be “diced up”, as the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher feared, but postponed. “This is not the time to launch a debate on a subject that could divide the country”, justified the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, this Wednesday noon from the Elysée Palace, summarizing in one sentence the spirit of this decision. word. This “new phase of action” in which we are entering must be one of appeasement, consensual subjects and “visible, tangible and concrete” results for the French, explained the head of government. The calm after the storm of retreats, in short; action after blocking.
There could therefore be no question of placing such a divisive subject as immigration at the heart of public debate. It was all the less conceivable since it is not, according to the Prime Minister, who confided at length to Le Point, “the number one concern for the French”. Finally, last argument of Borne: the executive would not have a majority to pass the text in Parliament. After receiving the leaders of the Republicans yesterday at Matignon, Élisabeth Borne noted that the elected LRs of the National Assembly and the Senate were not aligned and had concluded that they had to “find a common line” so that the government and LR can work together on this issue.
Borne, who has been struggling for several days to show that she is tackling a number of “irritants” that rot the lives of the French – too long a delay in obtaining an identity document, non-replacement of an absent school teacher, access to a general practitioner throughout the territory, etc. -, wants each law or measure presented to have a “direct” and “concrete” impact on the lives of our compatriots.
One of the objectives of this speech was also to reach out to the social partners, scalded by three months of social conflict over the pension reform. In order to renew a “peaceful and constructive dialogue”, the tenant of Matignon promised to launch “within the next three months” the debate on the “bill transposing the agreement between the social partners on the sharing of value” and called on them to set with the executive a social agenda for a “new act of life at work”. The full-employment bill must be presented at the beginning of June.
