Do not allow yourself to be trapped in the – rude – trap set by the executive. When they heard this Wednesday noon Élisabeth Borne explain that the government was postponing its immigration bill indefinitely for lack of a majority, due to supposed disagreements between LR deputies and senators, the blood of right-wing elected officials did not just one turn. Anxious to quickly regain control of this tripal subject in their electorate, the Republicans now intend to introduce their own piece of legislation.
The boss of the LR deputies, Olivier Marleix, confirmed this Wednesday to our colleagues from Les Échos, as he had already announced on March 23 on Public Sénat: since the executive gives up seizing the subject for the time being migration, LR will submit its own bill to Parliament. The objective is clear: to clearly harden the copy of the government, judged on the right to be “totally below the hand”. However, the precise contours of this text remain to be defined. LR parliamentarians will not begin discussions on the precise content of the measures until the beginning of May. For the moment, therefore, it was above all a question, strategically, of not being “passed the hot potato” of inaction by the Prime Minister.
Invited to Europe 1 this Wednesday morning, the leader of the Republicans, Éric Ciotti, outlined several possible avenues. Starting with a consultation of the French by referendum to allow France to derogate from Article 8 of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in matters of family reunification. “You need a referendum to change the framework,” he pleaded. An idea that is making its way to the right, and beyond. Not long ago, Renaissance deputy Robin Reda, a former Republican, pleaded in this direction in our columns. Among the other avenues mentioned by Éric Ciotti, “no more rights for illegal immigrants”, “more social benefits from day one for regulars” or “review the Nationality Code”.
President of the LR senators, Bruno Retailleau also pleads to considerably strengthen the system. “It’s five minutes to midnight when it comes to immigration in France!” “, he explained not long ago to the Point, judging the Darmanin bill insufficient, and qualifying the measure creating a residence permit for jobs in tension “of corrupting article”. “You give an enforceable right to regularization, you encourage fraud”. For the senator from Vendée, ex-candidate at the head of LR, France must follow in the footsteps of Denmark which, during the migration crisis of 2015, had closed its borders to preserve its social model, unlike the Sweden. “We have two chemically pure textbook cases with Sweden and Denmark. Today, the extreme right is in power in Sweden. »
Darmanin the hypnotist
Statements that testify to a change of gear on the right, aware of having seemed much too much in the wheel of the government during the debate on pensions and worried that the National Rally will not appear in 2027 as the only alternative to the macronie. So far, LR has in fact limited itself to doing on the Darmanin bill of the parliamentary guerrillas, striving to harden the text in the Senate with amendments to ensure that it is then rejected by the wing. left of the macronie during his examination in the Assembly.
“We must put in the text of Darmanin unacceptable things! ” had intimated Eric Ciotti to his troops in March, in a capillotracted strategy worthy of Macronist “complex thought”. Internally, some tenors of LR had objected that the party risked, by voting in the Senate the Darmanin text, even hardened, to pass again in the eyes of the public for the auxiliary of the executive.
“LR’s proposals must arouse debate, even criticism, but we must choose our field. On immigration, we need a systemic big bang rather than tinkering, “argues today an LR strategist close to Eric Ciotti, who openly campaigns for a” stop mass immigration “by modifying as necessary the Constitution of 1958. “We must not fall into the commentary amendment by amendment of the text of the government”, continues the same, who agrees that the right had so far been somewhat hypnotized by the skilful Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin. Who had, in recent weeks, worked on the body of right-wing elected officials behind the scenes to snatch their support for his legislation. The charm has visibly ceased to act.
