It was an interview that caused a huge reaction. In L’Express, this Monday, May 5, the former Prime Minister called for getting out of “immigration as a fait accompli, an immigration suffered”, in particular by renegotiating the agreement concluded in 1968 with Algeria which establishes a specific migration policy.
If these declarations were a call from the electoral foot, they in any case tickled the right of the political spectrum. The Republicans and the National Rally believe on both sides that these proposals have largely already been formulated by their parties. Without succeeding in hiding their agreement on a number of points raised.
Immigration, subject preserve
“Exceptional! After LR, it’s Edouard Philippe’s turn to copy the RN program”, said tweeted spokesperson and RN deputy for Var Laure Lavalette on Monday.
“Edouard Philippe claims to want to denounce the 1968 agreement with Algeria… But his government has one of the worst records in terms of migratory submersion, particularly from Algeria: each year between 2017 and 2020, more than 600,000 Algerians had a residence permit in France”, affirmed for his part on Twitter Alexandre Loubet, elected RN in Moselle.
On the Republican side, we also pride ourselves on having thought first of the questioning of the Franco-Algerian agreement of 1968. “We have proposed it for years”, explained the deputy LR of Lot Aurélien Pradié, questioned on this question about LCI. “This proposal, we have always made it, now it must be explained to the President of the Republic who is not of this opinion.” He argues that the current mayor of Le Havre should refocus on the pension debate, and is ironic: “Edouard Philippe is curiously better an observer than a better actor.”
Same story for the president of the LR group in the Senate Bruno Retailleau, who “gives some good points” to the ex-Prime Minister, who “is getting closer to our proposals”. “The 1968 agreement with Algeria, with Eric Ciotti and Olivier Marleix, we denounced it. We will propose a resolution to encourage the government to break this agreement”, notes for example the senator from Vendée, invited on South Radio.
Too timid proposals for Les Républicains
But the LR leader in the Senate believes that Edouard Philippe does not go far enough in his criticism of the immigration law which is to be presented this summer by Gérald Darmanin. “He says that Mr. Darmanin’s text is insufficient, a way of saying that it is not good at all. But he does not change the frame, he is shy. […] He stays in the middle of the ford and cries out like a frightened virgin,” says Bruno Retailleau.
The Republican senator wishes in particular to abolish and replace the State Medical Aid (AME), misguided according to him by the illegal migratory networks, where, for his part, Edouard Philippe assured in our pages to be “opposed to [sa] deletion”.
Moreover, criticizes Bruno Retailleau, the former number one in Emmanuel Macron’s government “does not want to change course: he recognizes that European case law is a problem, but at the same time, does not want to touch it, and does not want above all, no referendum” [sur l’immigration, NDLR]. Two provisions which are also contained in the two proposals immigration bills introduced by the Republicans between the end of May and the beginning of June.