The National Assembly adopted on Monday December 11 by 270 votes to 265 a motion for prior rejection of the immigration bill, inflicting a heavy political defeat on the government.
Tabled by the environmentalist group and voted for by the socialist groups, RN and LR, the adoption of this motion entails the immediate interruption of the examination of the text, even before the substantive articles are discussed. Recourse to article 49 paragraph 3 of the Constitution, allowing the text to be adopted without a vote, is not possible at this stage.
However, the text is not definitively rejected. The government can now choose to let the text continue its legislative journey in the Senate, convene a joint committee, or decide to abandon it.
The government can choose to let its bill continue its legislative journey and return to the Senate, where it was adopted at first reading, although significantly revised.
The LR senators, in the majority at the Palais du Luxembourg, then increased the bill from twenty-seven articles to a hundred, considerably toughening, sometimes with the agreement of the executive, the repressive nature of the text.
Restriction of land rights for children born in France to foreign parents; abolition of state medical aid; tightening of the conditions for family reunification, student migration and the issuance of a sick foreign residence permit; restriction of access to social rights; reinstatement of the offense of illegal residence; withdrawal of a residence permit in the event of non-compliance with the “principles of the Republic”; exclusion of people without a residence permit from the right to emergency accommodation… Several of these measures were then rebutted or rewritten by the deputies, during the examination of the text in committee.
The government may decide to convene a joint committee (CMP). Convened in the event of persistent disagreement on a text, a CMP brings together seven deputies, seven senators and as many substitutes behind closed doors, to try to reach a consensus on the text.
The rule is that the meeting of the CMP makes it possible to “propose a text on the remaining provisions under discussion”, according to article 45 of the Constitution, that is to say on the provisions “which have not been adopted in the same terms by both assemblies.” No additional provision is therefore accepted, and the right of amendment is not exercised.
Theoretically, discussions would therefore begin on the only text adopted in one of the two parliamentary chambers, namely that voted by the Senate, placing the right in a position of strength. Bruno Retailleau, the president of the LR group in the upper house, is already showing the color: if the government convenes a joint committee, “it is obviously the Senate text which will be our only compass”.
After the snub suffered by the Minister of the Interior, the government can declare the end of the legislative process of the “immigration” bill and withdraw its text. This is particularly what associations and NGOs for the defense of foreigners are calling for. “We must stop being stubborn and withdraw the text,” Fanélie Carrey-Conte, general secretary of La Cimade, one of the associations which had organized a rally against this, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). bill in the early afternoon near the National Assembly.
“We must seize this opportunity to decree a pause in this incendiary debate, which we clearly saw could only lead to a policy very unfavorable to foreigners,” observes Benoît Hamon, former socialist minister who now heads the NGO Singa.
On the side of the political class, on the other hand, several voices were raised to demand the continuation of the parliamentary debate. “All I want is for the government to continue, because it can do so, in its desire to provide answers to the problem of immigration,” pleaded the president of the Horizons group (party of Edouard Philippe) Laurent Marcangeli, member of the majority and support of the text defended by Gérald Darmanin.
