“What???? But that’s fake. I’ll tweet.” The distance did not quell the anger. Bruno Retailleau is traveling in Lebanon when we reveal to him this Wednesday the declaration of Elisabeth Borne. The Prime Minister has just announced the postponement until the fall of the immigration bill, during a press conference on the executive’s construction sites. Too bad for Emmanuel Macron, who wanted Sunday in Le Parisien an “effective and fair” text. The head of government noted the absence of a majority in the Assembly during a telephone exchange with the president of the Republicans (LR) Éric Ciotti. In front of the journalists, she pins LR and notes the absence of “common line” between the right of the Palais Bourbon and the Senate. The boss of the LR senators joins the action to the word. “This crude maneuver will not make anyone forget that it is the divisions of your own majority that force you to postpone the immigration law once again,” he retorts on Twitter. Whose fault is it ? Here is the right and the executive again embarked on a game of mistigri, after the episode of the retreats.
These scratches are customary. The reality is more down to earth: the executive is in an absolute strategic impasse to pass its law, a model of compromise between the left and right wings of the Renaissance. On the left, the creation of a residence permit for foreigners exercising a “job in tension”. On the right, a series of provisions facilitating the expulsion of delinquent foreigners.
For lack of allies, this balancing act failed. The left does not want to hear about the repressive component and has no desire to support the executive. Elisabeth Borne did not mention this camp during her press briefing. As if the Nupes were excluded from the political equation. The right castigates a massive regularization of illegal immigrants. Does it overplay the fear of a draft? Maybe, but arithmetic is stubborn. Without it, nothing is possible. “There is clearly no passageway with LR”, notes a minister at the forefront of the file. Éric Ciotti posed exorbitant complaints on Wednesday to dub the text, moving from the establishment of quotas to the end of family reunification. On April 5, Elisabeth Borne had been warned by the boss of LR, Bruno Retailleau and Olivier Marleix at Matignon. “It is impossible to seek a balance on this text. Either we show audacity, or we should not think about it.”
The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin however had a plan in mind, by starting the examination of the text in the Senate. The right-wing senatorial majority had to toughen it up, vote for it and put the 62 LR deputies face to face with their responsibilities. This strategy shattered on the intransigence of LR. In the law commission, the senators thus transformed state medical aid into emergency medical aid. They promised to cut to pieces the residence permit on the trades in tension in the hemicycle before the pension crisis interrupts the legislative process. “The text coming out of the Senate was going to cause a break in the presidential majority, Borne knows it”, notes an LR strategist. “Retailleau will take actions that he knows are unacceptable for Renaissance”, slipped an LR pillar in March.
Emmanuel Macron has attempted a strategic withdrawal. The Head of State announced on March 22 that the immigration bill would be “cut”. One law for the right and one for the left? This choice was favored by the president of the Law Commission, Sacha Houlié. He reminded Elisabeth Borne of this last week and the President of the Republic this weekend. “I haven’t given up on the idea that we can cut out the text, he confides. The bottle doesn’t matter, as long as we’re drunk.” Alas, the right does not want to hear about it. The head of the Senate Gérard Larcher told Élisabeth Borne and Emmanuel Macron: out of the question to slice up a text on immigration! An LR deputy recently warned the Minister of Action and Public Accounts Gabriel Attal: “If the government makes a V1 with the left, the right will not accept the V2 and vice versa. We must choose with whom we make the texts .”
Lack of choice, the government is floundering. Could it be otherwise? Sacha Houlié recently exchanged in the Senate with Bruno Retailleau. A meeting of one hour, where it was a matter of substance. The young deputy praises a “clear and frank” discussion with a “learned” man. But this esteem has not emptied the ideological disagreements between the former socialist and the conservative senator. “It was a Yalta,” smiles Sacha Houlié. A Yalta that would not have led to an agreement between the Allies. Limits of “At the same time.”
“Imagine, a 49.3 on immigration…”
For the time being, the executive is out of inspiration as much as solutions. Will it be just as much in the coming months? Everything allows you to think so. “It’s unmanageable. We can’t make progress on this before the senatorial elections in September, it’s as simple as that”, analyzes a minister. Elisabeth Borne does not seem to be saying anything else, assuring during the presentation of the government roadmap that “without a global agreement” a text will be presented “in the fall, with efficiency as the only compass”. And what could be more effective than a new 49.3? On the one hand, the president of the Renaissance group in the Assembly Aurore Bergé advised Elisabeth Borne not to draw the cursed article on the theme, and several ministers from the left, like Olivier Véran, also oppose it. On the other hand, no one in Macronie really sees how to do without…
“Let’s be serious, that wouldn’t be a good method, imagine, a 49.3 on immigration…”, the Matignon tenant said privately. But, even if the Prime Minister indicated that her “objective” remained to avoid the passage in force, the door remains however ajar. We should not make the mistake of demonizing this constitutional tool even more, as in the days preceding the vote on the pension reform… The Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin meanwhile, bearer of the bill, was one of the (very) rare to plead for the use of 49.3, which did not fail to make Elisabeth Borne smile: “I did not understand that it was he who engaged the responsibility of the government. Well not today, in any case…” As long as there is humor, nothing is lost.