after the adoption in Parliament, the Minister of Health presented his resignation – L’Express

Parliament definitively approved the law on immigration on Tuesday, a parliamentary victory for Emmanuel Macron which at the same time opens a deep divide within his majority, part of which turned away from a text supported at the last minute by the National Rally.

⇒ The text was adopted by Parliament

⇒ Borne and Macron will speak today

⇒ The Minister of Health presented his resignation

After 18 months of twists and turns around this flammable bill, the Assembly voted for it with 349 votes for and 186 votes against, out of 573 voters, LR and RN adding their voices to that of the majority. The latter was divided: it missed 59 votes, out of 251 deputies, between votes against and abstentions. The text would in fact still have been adopted if the far-right parliamentarians had abstained. However, the result would have been different if they had voted against.

On X, Gérald Darmanin welcomed the adoption of a “strong and firm” text, “without the voices of (88) RN deputies”. The Minister of the Interior accused the RN of making a “little political move” to embarrass the majority, when he had until now rejected it. “The majority united, the RN maneuver failed,” said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, seeming to ignore the defection of nearly a quarter of her deputies.

A sign of the unease in the majority, the president of the Law Commission, Sacha Houlié, voted against the bill. And the president of the MoDem group, Jean-Paul Mattei, abstained. Historical ally of the Head of State, the president of the MoDem, François Bayrou, had earlier in the evening made it known that he “will not accept” a text on immigration “claimed” by the RN, according to consistent sources. His group ultimately split during the vote.

The slump also affects the government: the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau presented his resignation to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, without knowing whether it had been accepted. Several ministers unfavorable to the text, such as Clément Beaune (Transport), Patrice Vergriete (Housing) or Sylvie Retailleau (Higher Education), were received in the evening at Matignon. Patrice Vergriete and Sylvie Retailleau, who disagreed with the text, had also “put their resignation in the balance” on Tuesday after the rallying of the RN, according to a ministerial source.

The president of the LR, Eric Ciotti, welcoming a “historic victory for the right”, called on the majority “in crisis”, to “take into account” the fact that the Republicans had allowed “in substance and form” adoption of this text”. “Let her finally understand that at the same time is impotence.”

The RN applauded these speeches in the hemicycle, rejoicing in its “ideological victory”, as Marine Le Pen said earlier in the day. “This evening, if the deputies of the National Rally voted against, this text would not pass contrary to the lies uttered by Mr. Darmanin. It is a total victory for the ideas defended by Marine Le Pen”, welcomed the deputy of extreme right Jean-Philippe Tanguy.

The leader of France Insoumise (radical left), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for his part denounced a “sickening victory” acquired on the contrary thanks to the voices of the extreme right. “A new political axis has been established,” he reacted on X.

He virulently attacked the left, accusing it of having betrayed “morality” by “begging for votes from the RN” – a way of taking revenge on the Nupes, whose rejection motion, voted by the right and the RN, had brutally ended the debates on this text last week in the Assembly chamber. Plunging the macronie into last chance negotiations with the right. The left has never stopped pointing out in the text “a law directly inspired by the program of Jean-Marie Le Pen”, the founder of the National Front: “national preference in social benefits, loss of nationality, questioning of land law”, listed the president of the LFI group, Mathilde Panot.