(Paris) The French National Assembly on Monday rejected a controversial bill on immigration aimed at controlling flows and improving integration, inflicting a very heavy political defeat on the government.
The motion for prior rejection of the bill, defended by the environmental group, was approved by 270 votes to 265 with votes from the left, the right and the far right. Its adoption results in the interruption of examination of the text even before the substantive articles are discussed.
The left and the far right welcomed the adoption of the rejection motion standing in the hemicycle, with left-wing deputies calling for the resignation of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
This rejection is a snub for Mr. Darmanin, who bet on finding a way, particularly with the right, to get his text passed to the National Assembly, after its adoption in the Senate in a strongly toughened version.
PHOTO VALERY HACHE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin
“Who’s afraid of debate? Those who will, in an unnatural alliance, come to an agreement so that the French do not see things moving forward,” said the minister at the opening of the debates on Monday, hoping to put pressure on the opposition to prevent the vote on the motion.
After numerous reshuffles and back-and-forths between the two chambers of Parliament, its repressive aspect has largely taken over, in the opinion of many observers, in particular by facilitating the expulsion of foreigners deemed dangerous, a strong demand on the right but also in opinion.
“It feels like the end of the road for his law and therefore for him,” said the leader of La France Insoumise (radical left), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, on X after the vote.
“The disavowal that has just been expressed this evening is extremely powerful,” reacted the president of the National Rally (far right) Marine Le Pen, believing that she had thus “protected the French from a migratory pull”.
PHOTO LUDOVIC MARIN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The president of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen
If the support of the left – which denounced an “unworthy” law – for the rejection motion was acquired, the main right-wing party The Republicans (LR) and the National Rally (RN), demanding on the contrary harsher measures, builds suspense throughout the day.
“Your government allowed the Senate’s firm text to be trampled on in committee,” the boss of the LR group Olivier Marleix told the minister.
At the Socialist Party, first secretary Olivier Faure considered that Gérald Darmanin was “disowned” and should “draw conclusions”.
Flammable subject
The subject regularly inflames the French political class, marked by a rise in power of the far right with the RN, like what is happening elsewhere in Europe, where populist parties are gaining ground.
France has 5.1 million foreigners in a legal situation, or 7.6% of the population. It hosts more than half a million refugees. The authorities estimate that there are 600,000 to 700,000 illegal immigrants.
After numerous reshuffles and back-and-forths between the two chambers of Parliament, the repressive aspect of the bill has largely taken over, in the opinion of many observers, in particular by facilitating the expulsion of foreigners deemed dangerous, a strong demand on the right but also in public opinion.
The context became tense with the assassination in October in the north of the country of a French teacher by a young radicalized Russian.
According to a recent survey, two thirds of French people think that extra-European immigration could be a danger for France.
To temper this tightening of the security screw, the executive had at the same time promised to facilitate the regularization of illegal immigrants employed in “stretched” professions, where labor is difficult to find, a theme dear to the left and to a large part of the presidential camp.
State medical aid (AME) – which covers 100% of the health costs of undocumented immigrants present on French soil for at least three months -, which the Senate had replaced by emergency medical aid, was to also be restored.
A crisis meeting of the presidential camp was immediately convened in the Assembly according to a ministerial source, to decide on the course of action to follow.
The government, which hoped not to need to resort to article 49-3 of the Constitution, allowing a text to be passed through force, can now choose to let it continue its legislative journey in the Senate or in a joint committee bringing together deputies and senators, or decide to abandon it.