After Mayotte, all of France? In the aftermath of a vote to restrict the law of the soil in the archipelago, François Bayrou wishes to reopen this explosive file in the context of a “wider” debate on French identity, claimed by the right but already denounced in his own government.
“We can enter a debate […] We are not going to repel everything “: questioned on RMC this Friday, February 7, the Prime Minister opened the door to a questioning of soil law, proposed in particular by his Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin. But for François Bayrou,” It takes an in -depth and much broader public debate than that “, including other subjects” which have been fermenting for years “around the notions of identity and citizenship.
“What is French? What does it give as rights? What does it impose as duties? What does it give as advantages? And in What does that commit you to be a member of a national community?
Ten days after his controversial sentence on the migration “feeling of submersion”, these new remarks also echo the voting, the day before, of a bill brought by the Republicans (LR) and supported by the government to drastically restrict the law From the floor to Mayotte. When “there are thousands and thousands of people who arrive with the idea that if they give birth to children there, they will be French, all that obviously deserves to be reconsidered”, justified François Bayrou, putting on The same plan the situation in Guyana.
LR applauds, terminal rebels
The opening of such a debate can only delight the right, which intends to push its advantage over the theme of immigration. Mayotte is “the first step”, has already warned the head of LR deputies, Laurent Wauquiez, whose displayed objective is “to extend these restrictions on the rest of the French territory”. “In the migratory situation we are experiencing, the law of the soil is not tenable,” insisted the MEP Friday and vice-president of Republicans François-Xavier Bellamy, relying on the official figures published this week: more 336,700 stay titles issued in 2024, up 1.8 % compared to 2023.
Point of view shared by Bruno Retailleau, also a member of LR and “perfectly agree” with the Prime Minister’s reflection. On the move to Lognes (Seine -et -Marne), the Minister of the Interior insisted on the need – in the case of naturalization – “to assimilate values” like “freedom of conscience” or ” equality between men and women “.
Currently, the law of the soil makes it possible to attribute French nationality from the age of 13 to a child born in France of foreign parents, provided that they have resided in the country for at least five years.
The questioning of this principle divided into the government, whose number two Elisabeth Borne clearly said on Friday on RTL that it was “not favorable” to the debate proposed by Gérald Darmanin. “What the French expect from us are acts and not to refer to a future constitutional modification,” said the Minister of National Education, who had already had a knit to leave with her colleague when she officiated in Matignon And him in Beauvau at the time of the immigration law at the end of 2023.
LFI gives the pressure
The debate desired by the Prime Minister is also likely to feed the quarrel on the left, where the socialists will again have to justify their choice not to censor the Bayrou government to let the budget pass.
“All our left -wing partners now know what will happen if this government does not fall: the rest is Bruno Retailleau, it is the questioning of the law of the soil,” warned on France 2 MP LFI Eric Coquerel.
A new opportunity will arise on Monday, with a motion of censorship on the social security budget – the third in less than a week. And the PS, which prefers to wait for the final adoption of the text to file its own motion following the words of François Bayrou on the migratory “submersion”, is always under the pressure of his allies of the new Popular Front “those who do not Will not be, definitely, come out of all alliance with us, simply because in reality, they are on the side of support for the government, “warned Eric Coquerel. “Any left parliamentarian worthy of the name must censor” the government, has abounded on X the movement coordinator, Manuel Bompard.