"It's very satisfying. The government will continue to listen in order to convince," Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin immediately reacted on X. After a week of examination, the immigration bill, which will arrive in the hemicycle from December 11, was adopted in a revised version, shortly after 2 a.m. thanks to the votes of the presidential camp and Liot deputies, and despite the opposition of the left and the RN.
"Perhaps the parliamentarians also saw that there was no reason to oppose and that in the face of the evidence, in front of the usefulness of all these measures, in front of the fact that no political personality before us had managed to act in this way, well, it was perhaps necessary to let us do it," said this Saturday on France 2 the president of the Law Commission Sacha Houlié (Renaissance).
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The two LRs present were divided. Mansour Kamardine (Mayotte), who notably pushed through an amendment at the end of the session to tighten family reunification on his territory, supported the bill unlike Annie Genevard (Doubs), who voted against. "The account is not there for us," she told AFP, adding that the text had "strayed far too far in its fundamentals from the Senate's version".
Among the most commented measures, state medical aid (AME) for undocumented immigrants, which the Senate had replaced with emergency medical aid, was reinstated. Regarding the experimentation of a system for regularizing undocumented immigrants in jobs in short supply, which is also emblematic, the presidential camp has proposed "a compromise".
The power of the prefect framed
The Senate provided for a procedure entirely in the hands of the prefect. The version adopted in committee in the Assembly provides a framework for the power of the latter, who could oppose the issuance of the title in the event of a threat to public order, non-respect for the values of the Republic or polygamy. The deputies went back on some of the Senate's toughening on family reunification, access to emergency accommodation, and the conditions of access to certain social benefits.
But they also kept several questions about the need to benefit from regular resources to access family reunification, the conditions of access to the "foreigner-sick" title, or the requirements for learning the French language. In committee, Gérald Darmanin did not fail to list to the LR deputies all the additions of the Senate retained in the text, insisting on measures aimed at facilitating deportations and reducing the time taken to examine asylum applications. "You'll have a hard time explaining that this is not what the French want," he said.
On Friday, the deputies adopted the lifting of several "protection" locks, against the expulsion of foreigners in a legal situation when they have committed certain crimes and serious offenses, or against decisions on the obligation to leave French territory (OQTF).
Without the 49.3?
They also adopted a wide-ranging reform of the National Court of Asylum (CNDA). The text aims at its deconcentration through territorial chambers. To the great displeasure of the left, it also lays down the principle of decisions by a single judge, collegiality being rather reserved for cases deemed complex, except for minors.
The parliamentary left, united on this text, attacked at length the pledges given to the right, deploring, like the Insoumise Thomas Portes, "a racist, xenophobic law that will have deadly consequences for thousands of people". For the leader of the PS deputies, Boris Vallaud, the government is showing "duplicity" by agreeing to review its regularisation system.
Read also"We're going to suffer losses": the majority in tension before the immigration debate
The RN vigorously criticised a text that was too weak in its eyes. On the LR side, the group's position was partly weakened by the publication of an op-ed by 17 deputies open to a vote on the text, if it retained enough elements from the Senate. In committee, the group's executives went back on the offensive, while insisting on the need for a constitutional reform that the group is due to defend in the hemicycle on 7 December.
Beyond some votes on the right, Beauvau hopes to be able to count on the independent Liot group, and more broadly on overseas deputies from other camps. The examination in plenary session will also be an eye-opener for the minister, Gérald Darmanin intending to win without the government having recourse to 49.3.