Emmanuel Macron is the guest of C à Vous, on France 5, this Wednesday, December 20 from 7 p.m. The head of state should explain the immigration bill and respond to criticism, particularly that of a rapprochement with the extreme right.
“There is no crisis in the majority.” If the Prime Minister and the government are trying to deceive, the majority is under tension after the vote on the immigration bill in Parliament. And the situation is such that the President of the Republic himself will speak the day after the adoption of the text. Emmanuel Macron is the guest of the France 5 show, C to youthis Wednesday, December 20 from 7 p.m.
The head of state preferred to give a long interview rather than give a televised speech. For the occasion, the show will be filmed from the Elysée. During the interview which should last more than an hour, Emmanuel Macron will not be able to escape questions on the immigration bill, his rapprochement with the right, the parallel between the text and the ideas of the National Rally and the management crisis within the government after a first departure. But the interview should also return “to the key moments of 2023” and “address the prospects for 2024” in terms of sport, politics, the economy and culture.
“This text is not the text of the National Rally”
Both Emmanuel Macron and the government assure that they have not played the game of the extreme right with the immigration law. “Let’s not fall into the trap […] this text is not the text of the National Rally”, insisted government spokesperson Olivier Véran, after the Council of Ministers this Wednesday. “The RN did not add a comma, not a word” in the bill, for his part thundered the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti at the National Assembly in the afternoon. Instruction given by Emmanuel Macron who assured in the closed session of the Council of Ministers that the bill immigration law “is not a text that dishonors us”.
It is now up to the Head of State to explain to the French that the text, the result of “a compromise”, did not bend to the ideas of the extreme right such as the “national preference” that Marine Le Pen says she sees in conditioning access to social assistance. Emmanuel Macron will also have to explain these sometimes very right-wing measures that he admitted “not liking” in the Council of Ministers. On this subject, the majority’s concessions to the right seem more numerous than the compromises made by the right on the demands of the presidential camp, another criticism made of the majority on this text and where the defense is still shaky. If the majority boasts of having voted for regularization in professions in tension as they wanted, the measure has been clearly rethought according to LR’s conditions.
To defend himself against certain measures deemed too harsh, the President of the Republic could call for the text to be examined by the Constitutional Council which he himself has referred. But will this be enough? After the declarations of Elisabeth Borne and Gérald Darmanin on measures “contrary” to the Constitution, the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure judged it “unheard of” that the majority votes on “unconstitutional subjects” in the hope of censorship on the most serious measures. more criticized.
The vote of the extreme right ruled out
Voted with a large majority of votes, the immigration bill could have been adopted without the support of the National Rally according to the government. Certainly, but the reality is more nuanced: in the event of abstention by the 88 RN deputies the text would actually have passed, but in the event of votes against the presidential majority would have lost, no offense. Emmanuel Macron’s response on this point seems to have been found, since he had announced that he would resort to a new vote in the Assembly in accordance with article 10 of the Constitution in the event of a victory permitted by the RN.
Ministers leaving? A reshuffle in sight?
The majority is coping well with a crisis, as evidenced by the few ministers who would have considered leaving. If some like Clément Beaune confirm that they are still ministers and others like Rima Abdul-Malak deny, the Minister of Health has indeed left the government. But “there is no movement of ministerial revolt” underlined Olivier Véran at midday. In the Council of Ministers, Emmanuel Macron told members of the government that “those who doubt and who have never really led a fight have no lesson to teach”. The Head of State advised his ranks to keep a cool head by recalling the “relative majority” present in the Assembly, although divided after the passage of the immigration law.
A retrospective and a look at 2024
The immigration law and its consequences should occupy a large part of Emmanuel Macron’s interview, but other subjects must be swept away at the end of the year. Emmanuel Macron could look back on a turbulent year 2023 for his government between pension reform and an almost fatal 49.3, this summer’s riots, a small reshuffle and the immigration bill. And it is not next year that the Head of State will be able to breathe with the organization of the Paris 2024 Olympics or the European elections for which the majority is in a bad position.