Immigration: Darmanin’s “outstretched hand” to the right

The soap opera around the immigration law continues to erupt in the media. Sunday May 28, in an interview at Parisian, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, tried to give the answer to the tenors of the Republicans (LR). The previous week, they had announced the tabling of two immigration bills In The Sunday newspaper (JDD), intending to weigh on the government while the latter wants to form an alliance with them, for lack of an absolute majority in parliament.

” Let’s work together (…) everyone must take a step”, again invited the minister to the address of LR. A year after the announcement of a text on this subject, the contours of a compromise are still not emerging for the executive. Concretely, the tenant of Place Beauvau must seal an agreement by the summer after the examination of his bill was suspended in March, just before its vote in public session in the Senate, for lack of a parliamentary majority. clear, in the context of disputed pension reform.

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In the Senate Law Committee, LR had considerably toughened up the government’s text, which is based on two main components: the extension of the possibilities of deporting delinquent foreigners and the simplification of the regularization of undocumented workers in sectors which are struggling to recruit. The right has always said it is fiercely opposed to this last provision.

“You are in the minority but important”

In the JDD of May 21, the three tenors of the right-wing party, the leader of the deputies, Olivier Marleix, the president of the senators, Bruno Retailleau, and the number one of LR, Eric Ciotti, maintained this red line and announced the filing of two bills: a constitutional law which would aim to reaffirm, in particular, the primacy of national law over international standards; an ordinary law which would make illegal residence a criminal offence, which would tighten the criteria for family reunification, or which would restrict the care available to undocumented foreigners.

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“The LRs alone do not have the majority, neither in the Senate nor in the National Assemblywe recall in the entourage of the Minister of the Interior. They are told: “You are in the minority but you are important.” If they don’t want to play with us on immigration, it will have been much ado for nothing. They would have a responsibility not to offer an immigration law to the French. »

At the Ministry of the Interior, we say we are ready to discuss several of the proposals of the right, in terms of restricting state medical aid, more constrained use of bone tests to assess the age of a migrant claiming to be an unaccompanied minor, or the conditioning of public development aid on the issue of consular passes for the expulsion of foreigners without a residence permit.

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