The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, was the guest of the France Inter morning show, Wednesday December 20, the day after the vote by the National Assembly and the Senate of the bill to control immigration, improve integration, after the agreement obtained in the joint committee (CMP) between deputies and senators. And this in a particularly agitated political context after the government was forced to give pledges to parliamentarians from the Les Républicains (LR) party, who won their case on a large part of the measures toughening reception and living conditions immigrants in France.
Faced with existing tensions within her own majority, the head of government resolutely defended this bill, distancing herself from the facts.
What she said :
“There is no question of removing the AME. (…) We deleted from the Senate text the measure which caused the AME to disappear in favor of a system that does not suit us. (…) The report on which we rely does not propose to do this and we will not do it. »
Why is it more complicated
The Senate had voted to abolish the AME, replaced by “emergency medical aid” with a largely restricted basket of care. Unlike the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who supported the measure, several members of the government argued for maintaining this social coverage reserved for undocumented foreigners.
The survival of this public health system was the subject of bitter political negotiations between the government and LR. In addition to the fact that it is a major ideological marker, the article of law risked being censored by the Constitutional Council because it was considered as a legislative rider, that is to say unrelated to the main object of the law. Voted on first reading in the Senate, it was finally deleted from the text adopted by Parliament.
To get there, Elisabeth Borne had given pledges to the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher (LR), on December 18, on the eve of the final vote on the text in Parliament. In a letter, she acknowledges that the AME has been “the subject of legitimate questions” and assures that she wants to “initiate a reform of the AME” from the start of 2024, in which parliamentarians “will be fully associated”.
In her letter, the Prime Minister relies on the report written by the former socialist Minister of Health Claude Evin and the former prefect, and right-wing man, Patrick Stefanini. This report confirms the “health usefulness” of AME and affirms that replacing it with emergency aid carries a “significant risk of forgoing care”, which could lead to a deterioration in the state of health of foreigners in irregular situation, with possible consequences on public health and increased pressure on health establishments.
The rapporteurs, however, recommend strengthening controls and tightening the eligibility criteria for the AME. Far from being unanimous in the medical and humanitarian community, these recommendations will serve as a basis for the future reform promised to the right by Elisabeth Borne.
In summary, if the “immigration” bill adopted on Tuesday does not actually contain the abolition of the AME desired by the Senate, the government has already committed to reforming it by promising to involve parliamentarians, in particular those who called for its removal.
What she said :
The Prime Minister welcomed the fact that the bill “was passed without the votes of the National Rally [RN]”, in accordance with a “principle that we had given ourselves”. She maintains that if the RN deputies had abstained, then it would have been adopted “with 261 votes for and 186 against”, since in this case the absolute majority would have been 224 votes.
Elisabeth Borne even assures that if the RN deputies had opposed the bill, the text would still have passed: “If the RN had voted against, I think we would have had votes, we would have had votes in addition. »
Why is it wrong
First of all, a fact: the 88 RN deputies voted for this text. It is therefore false to say that this bill was “passed without the votes of the RN”.
For the rest, it’s like political fiction:
Furthermore, the RN and LR groups are the only ones to have fully approved the text, while the Renaissance group recorded 20 votes against and 17 abstentions.
Finally, the RN constitutes, after Renaissance (131 votes for), the second contingent of deputies in favor of the text. This is not enough to assert that the immigration bill was adopted “thanks” to the RN, but enough to state that it was obviously not adopted “without” him.
What she said :
Elisabeth Borne was questioned about “the sticking point” represented by “national preference, now enshrined in law”, and about the fact that “the French will have an advantage over legal foreigners”. France Inter journalists cited in particular the measure in the bill which conditions certain social assistance on five years of regular stay (or thirty months for workers).
The Prime Minister rejected these accusations: “You can’t call it national preference,” she said. According to her, left-wing figures had proposed equivalent measures, like former President François Hollande when the activity bonus was introduced in 2016: “Can we say that Michel Rocard made the “national preference”? Did François Hollande make the “national preference”? To benefit from the activity bonus, a foreigner must wait five years: is this “national preference”? »
For Elisabeth Borne, this new law “distinguishes people not because they are French or foreign, but because they come to study with us, because they come to work with us or because they do not work”.
Why it’s not convincing
The question of “national preference” is linked to the measure desired by the Senate and adopted in CMP. The text adopted on Tuesday restricts a certain number of social assistance and rights (family allowances, personalized housing assistance (APL), right to housing) to foreigners who have been legally residing in France for at least five years. However, it adds the possibility for foreigners to benefit from this aid if they can demonstrate at least thirty months of professional activity (three months for APLs).
Contrary to what Elisabeth Borne asserts, the bill establishes a difference in nationality to access the same right. A clear break with the right to social protection resulting from the preamble to the 1946 Constitution.
In fact, a French person, whether they work or not, can benefit from APL without a waiting period. A foreigner in a legal situation, and who is working, will have to wait for three months (or five years for those who do not exercise professional activity) to request this assistance. It is for this reason that the government is accused of flirting with the idea of “national preference”. This waiting period is in fact a “circumvention measure for a national preference which does not say its name”, considered Antoine Math, researcher at the Institute of Economic and Social Research (IRES) and specialist in social policies, to Le Monde.
This principle is at the heart of the historic program of the far right. The National Front has been defending it for almost forty years, brandished for the first time during the legislative elections of 1986. More recently, in her 2022 presidential program, Marine Le Pen also purely and simply wanted to reserve family allowances “exclusively for French”, and proposed to condition other benefits, including APL… on five years of full-time work for foreigners.
What she said :
“[This text] is not a questioning of land law. We changed the text from the Senate, which said “this young person can acquire French nationality”. It is written in our version: “this young person acquires French nationality”. »
Why is it misleading?
Elisabeth Borne’s answer is correct… but incomplete. The Prime Minister points out the difference in wording between the text resulting from the Senate and that concluded in CMP.
The Senate text, in its article 2 bis, provided that “any child born in France to foreign parents can, from the age of 16 and until the age of 18, acquire French nationality provided that he manifests the will”. The text adopted in Parliament says that “any child born in France to foreign parents acquires French nationality upon reaching the age of majority, on the condition that he or she expresses the desire to do so.”
There is therefore a difference in wording, but this does not change the effects of the law: the acquisition of nationality is no longer automatic because it is conditional on the manifestation of the will of the person concerned. The form of the verb changes nothing: the law of the soil has indeed been hardened.
What she said :
“We took out measures that we didn’t want. The end of emergency accommodation for people who do not have the right to stay on our soil, we house them until they are removed. »
Why it’s very similar to the senators’ measure
Article 19 ter added by senators in November provides for the exclusion from emergency accommodation systems of people subject to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF), an administrative measure decided by a prefect against ‘a person staying illegally. The only exception: when the person is in a situation of distress sufficiently serious that it constitutes an “obstacle to their departure”.
The text resulting from the CMP is somewhat different and provides that foreigners targeted by an OQTF can only be accommodated “while awaiting their removal”. This clarification refers to the fact that most OQTFs give foreigners a thirty-day period to leave the territory. If this is the case, this means that foreigners targeted by an OQTF can only be accommodated for a maximum of four weeks, after which they are supposed to have left French soil of their own accord.
In fact, the reality is very different. People targeted by an OQTF often stay longer in France, and this measure will simply exclude them from all existing emergency accommodation centers. An effect aggravated by a provision present in article 21 of the law which increases the duration of execution of an OQTF from currently one year to three years. Which ultimately means that the measure adopted in the CMP will produce almost the same effects as that adopted in the Senate.
What she said :
Elisabeth Borne was questioned about the introduction of a deposit which will be required from foreign students, returned upon their departure. Journalists recall that several presidents of French universities and major schools have denounced “unworthy measures”.
For the Prime Minister, these heads of establishment have “probably not read the text”, since she assures that it says “very clearly that the Minister of Higher Education can exempt students from this deposit according to their resources, according to their school and university background”. And to admit that it is “not necessarily the best system”.
Why is it misleading?
Established by the Senate, the prior deposit of a deposit to obtain a student residence permit was abolished by the Assembly’s Law Committee. Finally, this measure was included in the text voted on in the CMP but was slightly amended.
In the final text, it is added that the minister responsible for higher education can exempt “exceptionally” students with low incomes and whose excellent academic or university career justifies it. An exceptional exemption that the Prime Minister failed to specify during her interview.
Finally, the bill specifies that a decree in the Council of State will detail the conditions of application of this measure, and will set the amount of this deposit taking into account “the eligibility criteria of students for scholarships”. Elisabeth Borne then explains that the deposit will be “perhaps 10 euros, 20 euros”, without convincing her interlocutors of any deterrent effect of the measure.