This Thursday, the French Constitutional Court annulled the most discriminatory measures of the controversial immigration law adopted in December.
Among other articles, the so-called
wise men
have declared restrictions on access to social benefits for foreigners contrary to the fundamental law, restrictions that could be understood as a form of “national preference”, a historical slogan of the extreme right.
The Constitutional Council - equivalent to the Spanish Constitutional Court and chaired by the former socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius - has censored, in whole or in part, 35 articles of the 86 that the law contained.
The French president himself, Emmanuel Macron, despite promoting the norm, asked the
experts
to evaluate it after its adoption, and declared that he believed that several articles were unconstitutional.
Of the 35 articles censored, three have been censored for substantive reasons.
And 32, for reasons of procedure or jurisprudence, without the nine members of the Constitutional Court coming to decide whether or not they contravened the principles of the fundamental law.
They have declared the aforementioned articles invalid for violating article 45 of the Constitution, which requires that amendments to a legislative text have a link, direct or indirect, with the original project.
The judges concluded, with respect to these 32 annulled articles, that they were amendments unrelated to the law.
Among them are some of those who had caused the most alarm in a part of society, and who led tens of thousands of people to demonstrate over the weekend in defense of the rights of immigrants.
There is, for example, the one that required a deposit from foreign students in some French universities.
Or the one that set a fine for the crime of irregular residence for undocumented adults.
Or those that restricted family reunification, which allows a foreigner residing in France to be joined by those close to him.
Also the most discussed of all: the requirement for those who are not citizens of the European Union of a minimum legal residence of five years in France - or two and a half years with work - to benefit, like the French, from some advantages of the State of the well-being, such as family or housing assistance.
The distinction between natives and foreigners in access to robust French social protection is one of the workhorses of the extreme right.
With this law, they believed they had made progress.
The Constitutional Court, although it does not go into the substance of whether or not these measures violate fundamental rights, stops the attempt.
But he doesn't finish it.
The first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, pointed out in a statement that the decision of the Constitutional Court “is very imperfect.”
“By censoring the articles for their lack of link with the text of the law,” he argues, “it does not pronounce on their conformity with the Constitution and, thus, leaves the field open for right-wing and extreme right-wing forces to demand a new text.” ”.
The law was the result of an agreement between Macron's supporters and the right-wing Republicans (LR), the PP's sister party in France.
In the National Assembly, it also had the vote in favor of National Regroupment (RN), the far-right party of Marine Le Pen, who celebrated an “ideological victory” for her people.
In the parliamentary negotiations, LR imposed on the Macronists articles that toughened the initial text, and which are precisely many of those that the Constitutional Court has censored.
The adoption of the law to the applause of Le Pen caused a crisis in the presidential ranks.
Dozens of deputies voted against or abstained, and the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, resigned.
At the beginning of January, Macron changed the prime minister, the technocrat Élisabeth Borne, for the young and skilled Gabriel Attal, and removed several ministers from the left wing of the Government.
The Constitutional decision eliminates LR's contributions to the law and returns it to a format more similar to the original, as Macron had conceived it.
It is possible that it will serve to calm the unrest among social democratic macronists, dissatisfied with what they consider a rightist turn in a movement that began as transversal, neither left nor right.
The Minister of the Interior and a prominent member of the right wing of the Government, Gérald Darmanin, claimed on
It was a way of saying that the final law, despite everything, will be conservative.
The decision is a setback for LR and the extreme right.
Now they could re-propose another law with the amendments removed.
Or start a constitutional reform.
The role of the Constitutional Court is also being debated, which will have had the last word with the two main reforms of Macron's second term: that of pensions, which he approved, and now that of immigration, widely rejected.
Jordan Bardella, Le Pen's right-hand man and president of the RN, described the Constitutional Court's decision as “a coup of force from the judges” and declared: “The only solution is the referendum on immigration.”
The battle has opened for the European elections in June, in which Bardella will be the head of the list and will be the favorite.
Immigration has all the numbers to take center stage.
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