Several associations denounce the tightening of the immigration bill by the upper house. The text should be examined by the Assembly in December.
They denounce a “festival of horrors”. Associations and immigrants are “scandalized” by the very right-wing coloring taken by the immigration bill after its examination in the Senate, which must vote on the text on Tuesday, November 14. These organizations now hope “to block” to this bill, which no longer has much to do with the one presented by the government, which praised the balance between a repressive component, intended to facilitate the expulsions of delinquent foreigners, and an integration component. But the senators toughened it considerably with measures emblematic of the right, at the end of a week of bitter debates.
“The Senate text represents a change in nature. We have been seeing restrictive policies on migration for 40 years. This is something else, both in the measures adopted and the tone of the debates”, worries Pascal Brice, president of the Federation of Solidarity Actors, which brings together 870 associations and organizations. The words of far-right senator Stéphane Ravier, who declared during an intervention on land law that a “A calf born in a stable will never make it a horse”notably pushed the federation to send letters to the centrist and RDPI senators until the last minute to dissuade them from voting for the text.
“We are devastated”
At the end of a week of debate, which notably saw the flagship measure for the regularization of undocumented workers in professions in shortage being reduced to a bare minimum, “we have a broken back”summarizes Mody Diawara, president of the collective of undocumented immigrants from Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis). “Article 3 [supprimé puis remplacé par un autre plus restrictif], we already thought it was hard. They think it’s too lax. That beats me”estimates this construction worker.
Another measure removed: state medical aid (AME), reserved for undocumented immigrants, replaced by “emergency medical aid” with a restricted basket of care. “We are devastated. This marks a regression on something fundamental”, observes Christian Reboul, migration referent at Médecins du monde. It will be necessary “to block” to the National Assembly, which will in turn examine the text from December 11, he said. Even if the damage is done, judges Christian Reboul, for whom these “ideas have had time to spread” in public opinion.
In the Senate, “we took a steamroller to the face”, admits Delphine Rouilleault, general director of France Terre d’Asile. Tightening of the criteria for family reunification, tightening of land law, conditioning of family allowances and housing assistance… The upper house adopted a general tightening of the screw. “It’s a festival of horrors. The search at all costs for an agreement with the Republicans does not explain the adoption of an extremely negative legislative development, which will above all lead to the ‘disintegration’ of foreigners”fumes the head of the association.