President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that there was "an immigration problem in France", but denied that the country was "overwhelmed", a day after parliament passed the controversial immigration bill. "I think that all the good souls who explain to me that this is not what you are doing, they are all the people who have governed the country for 40 years and who have done what?" said the head of state in the program "C à vous" France 5, reproaching his predecessors for not having settled this issue.
Earlier in the programme, the head of state said that the immigration law constitutes "a shield that we lack" and that the text represents a response to the problems that "feed" the ambitions of the National Rally.
Asked about the resignation of Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau following the vote of the text, Emmanuel Macron said "respect (his decision) and I also have a lot of respect for all the deputies of the majority who voted a law that was not a law of which they liked all the provisions," said the head of state on France 5. The adoption of this controversial immigration bill, voted for by the far right which claims an "ideological victory", has fractured the presidential majority.
Deposit required of foreign students is 'not a good idea'
For Emmanuel Macron, the bill "is a text that remains useful", and certain provisions "even if they don't please, did not justify blocking everything". The Head of State considered that the deposit that will be required of foreign students was "not a good idea", because "we need to continue to attract talent and students from all over the world".
VIDEO. Immigration: what's in the adopted text that causes a crisis within the government
To prevent the RN from coming to power, it is "necessary to deal with the problems that feed it" and "to show that there is a response in the republican field in line with our values", he continued. "It's not true" that the text includes "provisions that are of a National Rally nature," he added, adding that the law was "very clearly" aimed at discouraging illegal immigration.
The head of state thus assures that the adoption of the bill constitutes on the contrary "a defeat" for Marine Le Pen's party, in response to accusations of compromise with the far right. But if he believes that there is "a problem of immigration" in France, we are not "overwhelmed by immigration", he said.