The script was written, all we were waiting for were its performers. The decision of the Constitutional Council on the immigration bill gives rise this Thursday to an expected exchange of arms between the executive and The Republicans (LR). The broad censorship of the text sealed the divorce between the two partners, co-authors of the text after an intense standoff. Each camp is now playing its part and blaming the other for this legal failure. At the risk that everyone will be splashed by the bad rating inflicted by our supreme court.
35 of the 86 articles of the bill were totally or partially censored by the Constitutional Council. Tighter access to social benefits for foreigners, annual migration quotas, tightening of family reunification criteria, student “return deposit”… Entire sections of the text adopted on December 19, 2023 have been thrown into oblivion. Most of them (32) were swept aside for a procedural reason: these legislative “riders” had no place in the text, because they had no “direct or indirect” link with the initial bill. These provisions were almost all imposed by the right on the executive following a lying poker game: the government wanted a text at all costs, LR took the opportunity to inflate its shopping list.
“We had warned the LRs”
Their censorship was desired quietly by the executive. These divisive measures offended the majority, which was torn during the vote on the text. Emmanuel Macron and Élisabeth Borne had raised doubts about the constitutionality of these provisions in December in an implicit appeal to the Constitutional Council. The Sages proved them right.
In politics, solidarity ceases where interests diverge. After having endorsed these measures in December, the executive now rejects their authorship. He boasts the validation of almost all of the measures included in the initial project. LR? Do not know. “The Constitutional Council validates the entirety of the government’s initial text […] It takes note, as I was able to indicate during the debates, of the censorship of numerous articles added to Parliament, for non-compliance with parliamentary procedure”, affirms Gérald Darmanin on Twitter. “We had warned the LR several times times. They can only blame themselves”, people mock Place Beauvau. On the evening of the vote on the law, the Minister of the Interior thus affirmed before the senators that the text included articles “obviously and clearly contrary to the Constitution”. Before adding: “Politics is not about being a lawyer before lawyers.”
“A coup”, according to Bellamy
LR only has eyes to cry, this decision is a snub for the party. The law was right in its Christmas political victory. Of the muscular text whose pen he wrote, there remains so little. As soon as the decision was announced, the right attacked the nine wise men, guilty of having disregarded popular sovereignty. “They judged in politics rather than in law,” thunders LR boss Éric Ciotti, who accuses Emmanuel Macron of having “desired” censorship. “A coup”, says number 2 of LR François-Xavier Bellamy, when Olivier Marleix denounces the “Parliament of Judges”. In a press release, the party renews its call for a constitutional revision “to give the French back control of their destiny”. Way of establishing his ideological victory, he who depicts our fundamental law as a brake on increased control of migratory flows. This communication sometimes ignores the “procedural” dimension of the decision rendered this Thursday: the measures could reappear later in other texts.
Thus, Éric Ciotti simultaneously asks the executive to include the invalidated provisions regarding “riders” in a specific text. This grievance risks remaining a dead letter. “The government has no reason to propose a legislative text,” says Beauvau. The immigration law has torn Macronie apart enough, there is no point putting a piece back into the machine. This sequence should in any case leave traces between the government and LR. Éric Ciotti had threatened Élisabeth Borne on December 20 during a telephone exchange with a response in the media and in Parliament if the agreement reached with the right was not respected. The right is filled this Thursday with a feeling of betrayal, which hardly encourages goodwill.
The RN in ambush
An executive transformed into a law professor. A right that looks like a betrayed spouse. The autopsy of the immigration sequence suggests the existence of a winner and a loser. From a cunning partner and a more naive one. A more global photograph tempers this impression. The executive did not lack cynicism. He endorsed measures that he knew were unconstitutional to pass a bill on immigration… Before publicly denying them. The right left a dubious mark on the text… and is paying the price a month later. The executive wanted a text at all costs, LR wanted political success: the first was devitalized, the second was stillborn. “Everyone is losing and trying to find something to hold on to the branches, laments a majority executive. It was a Pyrrhic victory at the time of the vote on the text, it is confirmed this evening. The damage is in all camps.”
Ultimately, they risk hitting the executive as a priority. “When the Council has objected, people will say that the text is poorly written and is useless,” a Renaissance MP anticipated in December. “Everything will come back to the government and the majority.” And then, Emmanuel Macron uses the fight against illegal immigration as leverage to fight the National Rally. What will remain of this decision? The eviction of measures for procedural reasons? Or the censorship of a text acclaimed by public opinion? “If the idea rises that a judge undoes what the legislator has done in line with public opinion, this will fuel a deleterious feeling,” noted a Renaissance deputy this Thursday morning. Marine Le Pen is not mistaken. The frontist denounces in a press release the “mystification” of the government and launches a call for a constitutional revision. One person’s legal failures are another person’s political opportunities.