Relative majority or not, here is a text which was hardly debated in the Assembly, despite the marked opposition of three leftist groups.
The deputies largely approved this Tuesday the bill of programming and orientation of the Ministry of the Interior, which provides for an additional 15 billion euros over five years, a text adopted with the assistance of the LR and the RN despite the opposition from a large part of the left.
The text carried by Minister Gérald Darmanin was adopted at first reading by 419 votes to 116, and 35 abstentions.
The elected Communists, Ecologists, and LFI unanimously voted against, while the Socialists abstained.
After the vote, the minister welcomed a "historic" text giving "police, gendarmes, firefighters and prefecture agents" "means to protect the French".
The right congratulates itself on certain victories
The bill had already been comfortably adopted in the Senate (307 votes for – including the Socialists, 27 against).
Deputies and senators will now try to agree on a common version of the text in a joint committee.
“We welcome the increase in appropriations and the recruitment of 8,500 positions in the police” over the five-year term, declared before the solemn vote the deputy LR Ian Boucard, repeating however that his group considered the bill as “ insufficient ".
Right-wing elected officials have almost doubled, to 3,000, places in administrative detention centers for foreigners in an irregular situation.
"It is not enough to inject money", launched the RN Jordan Guitton, believing that the text represented more "the communication ambition of a minister", even if his group would vote to "support the forces of the order ".
The Socialists stand apart on the left
The LFI, communist and ecologist deputies, on the other hand, criticized a vision contrary to the “local police” that they defend.
Also in their sights is the extension of the number of offenses which may be subject to a fixed tort fine, imposed by an agent outside of a trial, for example for obstructing road traffic.
“These are always the same old recipes from Nicolas Sarkozy that you have chosen to 'pimp' (…) the quantity, the figure to the detriment of the time of the investigations”, launched the minister the ecologist Sandra Regol.
“It would be stupid not to recognize the advances contained in this text, and in particular the budgetary effort made”, argued for his part the socialist Roger Vicot, recalling however an alert from the Council of State on the “non-securing budget in the years to come.
Less hostile than the other deputies of the Nupes, the deputy nevertheless denounced "the extension of criminal lump sum fines to intrusions into schools and blockages of traffic lanes (which) poses a real democratic question with regard to the law to manifest”.
Defending an "offensive abstention", he, like the other left-wing deputies, denounced the upcoming reform of the judicial police as well as a lack of measures in the text in favor of the police-population link.
What are the main measures of the text?
With the increase in appropriations, 11 new units of mobile forces “specialized in rapid intervention” will be created.
And, to ensure security in rural areas, 200 gendarmerie brigades.
To fight cybercrime, which is constantly increasing, the text will allow the seizure of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies.
The bill also opens the possibility for certain offenses to file a complaint by videoconference, and toughens the repression of sexist and sexual insults.
It also presents a ministry roadmap (on digital, training, the place of Frontex in national border control, etc.), without legislative value.