an unprecedented alliance of the left wing of the majority at Nupes to defend a “humanist” text

“We carry a humanist and concrete project”. In an unprecedented alliance, 35 left-wing parliamentarians signed the same column, published Monday September 11 in Release and which Franceinfo obtained, to preserve the social aspect of the immigration bill. These parliamentarians from Nupes (PCF, EELV, PS), the LIOT group and Renaissance want to protect what the Republicans describe as a red line: the regularization of undocumented workers in professions in tension, an avenue nevertheless advanced by the government which defends A “balanced text”. “These are often those who are found on the front line in sectors under pressure such as construction, hotels and restaurants, cleanliness, handling, personal assistance”write the signatories.

Several “urgent measures for people’s access to work”

In addition to the regularization of undocumented workers, the deputies demand the regularization of employment situations. “those who are present on the national territory and who are prevented from working due to lack of papers”. “They only want to work, specify the signatories in their forum, they could do it directly or after training that many professional branches and public training centers are ready to develop.”

Other requests: “restore the right to work for asylum seekers” – the latter must wait six months before being able to apply for a work authorization – and facilitate appointments at the prefecture. “It is time to set a maximum deadline for the administration to grant an appointment at the prefecture”, they plead. Before threatening to take an initiative “if the government is not able to have them adopted quickly by Parliament”. Initiative which could be, according to information from franceinfo, the tabling of a separate bill.

Behind the scenes of this initiative

This column was prepared in secret over several months. The first meeting dates from March 9, 2023, in the middle of a day of mobilization against pension reform. It is a certain Pascal Brice, former boss of Ofpra (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons), who is behind it and who manages to get everyone around the table. Sacha Houlié, Renaissance deputy and president of the law commission, figure of the left wing of the majority, Stella Dupont, Renaissance deputy, Fabien Roussel, communist deputy and national secretary of the PCF, Boris Vallaud, patron of the socialists in the Assembly national, Marie-Pierre de la Gontrie, socialist senator from Paris, or even Julien Bayou, ecologist deputy, find themselves physically on five occasions, sometimes in the basement of the brasserie Le Bourbon, very frequented by deputies and parliamentary journalists .

“I wanted to launch this initiative, since I see these issues of precariousness everywhere, especially as president of the Federation of Solidarity Actors (FAS), Pascal Brice explains to franceinfo. I wanted to bring together a certain number of parliamentarians, from the majority and the opposition. I even reached out to Republicans, but I didn’t hear back.” The man in the shadows confesses “admiring the courage of the signatories” who managed to overcome their differences, while they were arguing at the same time in the chamber over pension reform. According to our information, the rebels, who were at the start of the game, ultimately refused to sign at the bottom of the page.

To immortalize their unprecedented alliance, the signatories pose side by side, Monday, in the same photo which illustrates their platform. Exactly what the LRs had done on the front page of JDDlast May, to demand… exactly the opposite on immigration.