deputies adopt a first revised version of the text in the law committee

The text adopted in committee reverses some of the harshest measures introduced by the Senate, but maintains others. The bill will be examined in session from December 11.

First step taken at the Assembly. The deputies of the law committee voted on the night of December 1 to 2 for a revised version of the immigration bill, which revisits the toughest measures of the Senate, but with which the presidential camp still hopes to win votes from the right .

After a week of examination, the text was adopted shortly after 2 a.m. thanks to the votes of the presidential camp and Liot deputies, and despite opposition from the left and the RN. “It is a great satisfaction. The government will continue to listen to convince”immediately reacted the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin on.

Measures removed, others maintained

Several measures introduced by the senatorial right were rejected by the deputies. Among them, the abolition of state medical aid (AME) for undocumented immigrants and its replacement by emergency medical aid, as well as tougher measures regarding family reunification and access to accommodation. emergency, or even the conditions of access to certain social benefits.

But others have been retained: for example, the need to benefit from regular resources to access family reunification, the conditions of access to the “foreign-sick” title, requirements for learning the French language, or a broad reform of the National Court of Asylum (CNDA). The deputies notably adopted the lifting of several “protection” barriers against the expulsion of foreigners in a legal situation, when they have committed certain crimes and serious offenses, or against decisions requiring them to leave French territory (OQTF) .

Another central point concerned the experimentation of a system for the regularization of undocumented immigrants in professions in shortage. The presidential camp proposed “a compromise” : the Senate planned a procedure entirely in the hands of the prefect, but the version adopted in committee limits his power.

LR deputies divided

The parliamentary left, united on this text, attacked at length the pledges given to the right. For the leader of the PS deputies Boris Vallaud, the government is showing “duplicity”, by agreeing to review its regularization system. For Elsa Faucillon (PCF), compromises with the Senate “serve the myth of the call for air”. The RN vigorously criticized a text that was too weak in its eyes.

The Republican deputies are more divided. In committee, the group’s executives went on the offensive again, insisting on “unraveling” of the senatorial version, in the words of the president of the LR group Olivier Marleix. One of the two LR deputies present (Mansour Kamardine, deputy for Mayotte) voted for, the other (Annie Genevard, deputy for Doubs) against. “The account is not there for us”she reacted to AFP, believing that the text had been “much too far removed in its fundamentals from the Senate version”.

In committee, Gérald Darmanin did not fail to list to the LR deputies all the Senate additions retained in the text. “You will have a lot of difficulty explaining that this is not what the French want”launched the Minister of the Interior.

The text will be examined in the hemicycle from December 11. Gérald Darmanin has repeatedly repeated that he does not wish to use 49.3 to obtain the adoption of his bill.