The executive opened a new explosive site on Wednesday, in the midst of a pension battle, by endorsing in the Council of Ministers a very controversial bill on immigration whose adoption in Parliament promises to be very complicated.
“We are certain (..) that we will reach a compromise without distorting the text, obviously listening to the opposition, and particularly the right-wing opposition”, assured the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin at the end of the Council of ministers.
The text must be examined in March in the Senate, dominated by the right-wing opposition, then at the end of May / beginning of June in the National Assembly where the executive only has a relative majority.
The Republicans (LR), whose vote is essential for its adoption, are pointed against the regularization of undocumented migrants in “jobs in tension”, where employers are struggling to recruit, believing that this will create a “draft of air ” and “open the floodgates”.
The project “does not make it possible to regain control, control of immigration”, thus estimated the boss of the senators Les Républicains Bruno Retailleau, warning against “insurrections at the ballot box very soon” if the trend was not not reversed.
The text provides for measures to facilitate expulsions, especially of “delinquent” foreigners, a reform of the right to asylum and an integration component, in particular the granting of residence permits for undocumented migrants employed in “short-term jobs” .
Gérald Darmanin and the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, who carries the economic part of the bill, both hinted that adjustments to the text were possible and said they were waiting for the “proposals” of the LRs, in particular on “quotas” for regularization .
The Minister of the Interior also said he was “open” to possible “restrictions” on family reunification, adding that he wanted to “twist the blow to fake news” according to which the regularization of undocumented migrants would facilitate it.
Intended to seduce both the Republican right, which is increasingly radical on the subject, and the left, which denounces the reception conditions for foreigners, the text ended up upsetting everyone… and could require triggering the constitutional weapon of 49.3, which allows its adoption without a vote.
“We will not lend themselves to a communication exercise consisting in pretending to settle the question. The subject is too serious”, noted the boss of the LR deputies, Olivier Marleix, in front of the journalists of the parliamentary press.
On the far right, the president of the National Rally group Marine Le Pen judged that the text was not “at the level of the problem”. The left is standing up against its repressive component in terms of expulsions.
The majority itself appears divided, between supporters of the right wing, ready to further toughen the project, and elected representatives from the left, who see red lines in it.
Some already fear that the regularization part will fall by the wayside. “The LRs ask that it not be in this text”, notes a Renaissance deputy.
A risk that Mr. Dussopt tried to minimize. “If we presented the text this (Wednesday) morning with two pillars, it is because there are two pillars and it is quite balanced”.
He also recalled that the labor market reform as well as the Orientation and Programming Law of the Ministry of the Interior (Lopmi) had been adopted without 49.3. “Even when we were promised that the 49.3 would be necessary”.
The text comes the day after a double observation: an increase of 31% in asylum applications (137,000) in 2022 and 15% in expulsions (15,400), these nevertheless remaining lower by a third than those of 2019 , before Covid.
Associations and NGOs that are already worried about a toughening of the text, the 29th on asylum and immigration since 1980.
Regularization in jobs in tension “is already the subject of fairly unbearable bargaining and planned renunciations”, lamented the director general of France Terre d’asile, Delphine Rouilleault, on franceinfo.
“We are reducing to nothing the rare effects that private and family ties, or seniority in the territory, could still have,” warns Claire Rodier, head of Gisti, one of the main associations for the defense of exiles.
02/01/2023 14:27:29 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP