Political agreements are like insurance contracts. You must read them carefully before signing them: dissect each word, detect the hidden meaning of the slightest comma. Clarity is a guarantee of security, equivocation is a danger. Like an unscrupulous banker, the government set a trap for the Republicans (LR) on the thorny issue of State Medical Aid (AME). After having dangled to the right a legislative evolution of the system of access to care for people in an irregular situation, the executive closed the door brutally. The reform will be carried out by “regulatory means”, announced Tuesday January 30 Gabriel Attal during his general policy declaration. Forgotten, the parliamentary debate hoped for by the right. The president of the Republicans Éric Ciotti denounces a “betrayal of the word given”. But who hears him scream? LR has been screwed again.
In politics, solidarity ceases where interests diverge. In December 2023, the time has come for convergence. The government and the Republicans (LR) are then engaged in a standoff around the immigration bill. The executive writes the text under the dictation of its demanding partner, after the vote on a motion to reject the government copy. The negotiation crystallizes on the AME. The right wants to transform it into Emergency Medical Aid (AMU), a less expensive and more restrictive system. The government is reluctant: its majority will not accept this measure, which already has to swallow so many snakes. Élisabeth Borne is therefore committed to reforming the AME at the start of 2024 to extinguish LR’s requirements on the immigration text.
An ambiguous letter
In a letter addressed to the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher, the Prime Minister disguises her promise with a legal veneer. The AME is a “legislative rider” which risks being censored by the Constitutional Council. This could sharpen the suspicion of the right. Didn’t the executive adopt other unconstitutional measures to obtain an agreement with her? This law professor is definitely of variable geometry. Élisabeth Borne promises in her letter “legislative or regulatory developments” based on the proposals formulated by Patrick Stefanini and Claude Evin in a report commissioned in October by the government. The use of the conjunction “Or” is not neutral. Just like the promise to “involve” parliamentarians in the work. From the epistolary “at the same time”. “I understood the legislative route but this letter is ambiguous,” remembers the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau.
Ambiguous, and not entirely honest. When she wrote her words, Élisabeth Borne was put on notice: several recommendations of the Stefanini-Evin report can only be implemented by law. Such as the withdrawal of the AME from foreigners targeted by a removal measure for reasons of public order. As, also, the limitation of the status of beneficiary of an “insured” to the AME to minor children only. The head of government therefore never undertakes to take up all of the proposals in the report. She does not lie, but hides her game. We must then maintain the vagueness so as not to turn to the right. A person familiar with the matter warned Matignon at the time. Without a written commitment, LR will not bend.
“Just one idea, escape the legislature”
The State only has one word. As soon as he installed rue de Varenne, Gabriel Attal reaffirmed the executive’s commitment to reforming the AME. The Prime Minister renewed this promise during Questions to the Government (QAG), but also on January 17, during an interview with Éric Ciotti, Bruno Retailleau and Olivier Marleix. But in reality he wants to spare himself a heated parliamentary debate. The immigration law has sufficiently fractured the majority, there is no need to put a coin back into the machine. “If we create a law, we will embark on something so excessive,” notes a minister. “The Republicans will be jubilant and will be incapable of showing moderation.” “The government would fall in the Assembly on this subject today,” adds a ministerial advisor. The Minister of Health Catherine Vautrin, who received Claude Evin and Patrick Stéfanini last week, finally has little desire to walk on a minefield. “She only has one idea, to escape the legislature,” observes an interlocutor of the ex-Sarkozyst. She spoke Wednesday evening with the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher.
SOUL. These three letters have been poisoning power for months. In the heart of summer 2022, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is keeping the subject at bay during the preparation of the immigration bill. “Gérald told us that he would be dragged to the right if this point was raised and that this would put him in an impossible situation,” says a participant in the interministerial meetings. However, the government is falling into the trap. In the fall of 2023, ministers and leaders of the majority will discuss in Matignon the senatorial amendment transforming the AME into AMU in the bill. Gérald Darmanin suggests responding with “an opinion of wisdom” so as not to rob LR. The Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau is not at ease, and leaves his counterpart in charge of Health Professions on the front line. “Agnès Firmin Le Bodo will go to the bench,” he says. “The government bears this opinion of wisdom like a cross,” notes a participant in this meeting.
Gabriel Attal does not have the profile of a martyr, Parliament will not be his Mount Golgotha. The right feels betrayed. The Prime Minister’s announcement leaves her knocked out. Éric Ciotti commissioned a note from the LR studies department to identify AME measures falling under the legislative or regulatory route. His defeat is above all symbolic. LR was banking on a parliamentary debate to shake up the majority and arrogate to itself the monopoly of sovereign firmness. These heated discussions will not take place. Instead, dry technical exchanges in the alcoves of ministries. The executive won the game, but at what cost? After the poaching of Rachida Dati and the partial censorship of the immigration text, LR suffered a new humiliation. A dangerous feeling in politics.
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