The obstacle course continues: a joint committee bringing together deputies and senators must decide, Monday December 18 from 5 p.m., the fate of the “immigration” bill, either to bury it or to reach a version of compromise normally submitted to the vote of both chambers on Tuesday. Monday morning, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, assured on LCI that he was “closer to an agreement than a disagreement” with Les Républicains on the immigration bill.
“At this stage we cannot speak of an agreement”, but “it is progressing positively”, he said a few hours before the meeting of a commission of deputies and senators responsible for finding a compromise on this ultra-sensitive text . “We have marked out the path to find, based on the Senate text, the possibility of reaching an agreement,” even if “there remain many details to be resolved,” he added. “We also have our red lines, we cannot accept just anything,” he warned, however, while the Republicans camped on a hard line.
As for the condition of a minimum length of stay for family allowances, requested by Les Républicains, “we proposed a longer delay for those who do not work”, he affirmed, with a duration of “thirty months for those who work, five years for those who do not.”
On the regularization of undocumented workers in professions in shortage, “The Republicans have accepted that this article can exist,” said Mr. Darmanin. Asked about the risk of the text failing, he warned that “it would be a magnificent booster for Ms. Le Pen.” “Ms. Le Pen does not want these solutions, she wants problems” and “the politics of the worst, because the worst serves her,” he declared.
After the surprise adoption of a rejection motion on December 11, which put an end to the debates in the Assembly hemicycle, the government decided to entrust this body with the task of trying to reach a text which happy both LR and the majority.
The AME, one of the blocking points for LR
For his part, the leader of the LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, judged Monday morning on BFM-TV/RMC “not completely satisfactory” the new version of the immigration bill received during the night from Sunday to Monday, after yet another late and inconclusive meeting in the evening.
Recalling that his “compass from the start has been the Senate text”, which had toughened the initial version of the bill carried by Mr. Darmanin, Mr. Retaileau recognized that he was “not looking for a text of balance, balance means “at the same time”, I want an effective text”.
On the specific question of state medical aid (AME), access to certain health care for undocumented foreigners, the government and LR seem to have agreed to remove this question from the text which must be examined in joint committee (CMP), and treat it separately.
Mr. Retailleau demanded that the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, send “before 5 p.m. a letter” to the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, detailing the future reform of the AME. “There will be no agreement if there is not this letter. This is one of the blocking points,” he warned, saying he was concerned about “reducing the attractiveness of our social model.”
Same requirement for Eric Ciotti, who also expects “a commitment” to increase the number of expulsions. Leaving Matignon on Sunday evening, the president of the Republicans also felt that “at this stage we cannot speak of an agreement”.
“The choice to defend national preference”
Discussions have nevertheless advanced on certain points, such as social assistance, which would now be conditional on five years of residence for foreigners, a period reduced to two and a half years “for those who work”, indicated Annie Genevard. A sign, for the LR MP who will sit on the CMP, that an agreement “is within our reach”.
So many concessions which could undermine the left wing of the majority and make the communist leader Fabien Roussel say that the Macronists “lose their soul” and “their convictions” by making “the choice to defend national preference”.
The right also seems to have won its case on the regularization of undocumented workers in professions in shortage, which would remain at the discretion of the prefects, or even on the loss of nationality for dual nationals perpetrators of crimes against the forces of the order.
For the Minister of Solidarity, Aurore Bergé, we must go through such gestures towards the right. “If we do not have a text voted on in the National Assembly and the Senate, it will be the victory of only one camp, the National Rally.” Even if, for the vice-president of the far-right party, Sébastien Chenu, a possible compromise will “in any case” only result in a “disappointing” text.