Bruno Retailleau and Hervé Marseille do not practice boxing. The two bosses of the senatorial majority (LR and Centrist Union) nevertheless respected the ceremonial weighing, before the arrival this Monday, November 6 in the Senate of the bill on immigration. Everyone flexed their muscles and glared at each other before climbing into the chamber. The two men virulently disagree on the regularization of illegal immigrants working in professions under pressure – the famous article 3 – at the risk of bringing down the text. But now in the ring, isn’t it time for compromise?
Gérald Darmanin has a plan in mind. The Minister of the Interior insisted that his text be first examined in the upper house, with a right-wing majority. His strategy: achieve a vote on a text co-constructed by the executive and LR senators to place right-wing deputies against the wall. This is good news, the president of the Senate Gérard Larcher and the boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau, concerned about the image of their institution, want to send a strong text to the Assembly. The project plans to facilitate the removal of foreign offenders and simplify procedures. Never mind ! The tenant of Beauvau endorsed the senatorial amendments adopted in the Law Commission, ranging from the tightening of family reunification to the reform of State Medical Aid.
Article 3, between symbol and postures
Article 3 stops this beautiful machine. Bruno Retailleau does not want to hear about it and will defend during the session an amendment to delete the provision. He denounces a bonus for fraud and raises the specter of a call for illegal immigration. “If there is even a trace of Article 3, my group will vote against the text,” he confided in October.
The centrists are more open. Their president Hervé Marseille, close to Gérald Darmanin, is “rather against” article 3 as written by the executive. The latter provides for the creation of a title issued “as of right”, which the administration is required to give to foreigners who meet the legal conditions of seniority in the workplace and length of residence in France.
Hervé Marseille defends an amendment which reduces the scope of article 3, but does not delete it. The title would be granted “exceptionally within the framework of the discretionary power of the prefects”, as is already the case under a circular from 2012. The only innovation: the title could be requested by the employee alone, whereas today he must be supported by his employer in his approach. Anxious to find a compromise, Senator LR Francis Szpiner also tabled an amendment toughening the government provision.
Tensions between LR and centrists
This modest legislative hook is too much for Bruno Retailleau. If the left and the centrists combine to maintain it, he promises to pulverize the text during the final vote. A theoretically possible hypothesis, because the left will not vote for the law as a whole. Curious situation. No ideological divide exists between centrists and LR senators, in tune with the toughening of the repressive aspect of the text. The rewriting of article 3 by Hervé Marseille is a disguised burial. He himself admits that his proposal is above all a signal to the deputies, attached to a legislative trace. “As we have obtained a lot of things on the text, the idea is to make a gesture towards the Assembly.”
But the symbolic weight of a law on regularizations crushes everything. Each camp accuses the other of falling into posturing. The centrists point out the rigidity of Bruno Retailleau, obsessed by the absence of a legislative trace. “The LRs want to go to the girls, but don’t want it to be known,” mocks a centrist. The right is annoyed by its funny partner. This heterogeneous group has one foot in the presidential majority and one foot in the opposition. Several LR senators suspect Hervé Marseille of giving pledges to the executive to obtain places on the Renaissance list in the European elections, which the person concerned rejects. Gérald Darmanin finally handles ambiguity with dexterity. He privately approved the Marseille amendment while affirming his attachment to article 3, which would nevertheless be emptied of a large part of its substance. Law is a complex matter, therefore a political object that can be manipulated at will.
Darmanin’s optimism
This cold war ends up tiring Gérard Larcher. The President of the Senate, who is keen on the unity of the senatorial majority, called on Tuesday the LR troops not to “break the dishes”. “Larcher will not let the Senate vote against the final text,” anticipates an LR executive. “There is a risk of fracturing the majority and degrading the image of the Senate,” adds Hervé Marseille. “I want to find a solution.” In the majority, everyone wants it. Can this convergence of interests lead to an agreement? Bruno Retailleau expressed his optimism in mid-October. “We will find a political compromise,” the Interior Ministry is assured.
Gérald Darmanin plays big. His strategy would collapse if the project were rejected in the Senate. The text would then return to the Palais Bourbon in its initial version, without the senators’ twists and turns. “In the Assembly, there will only be majorities to reject the amendments and not to approve them, analyzes an LR deputy. If we want the text to be tough, the text which arrives at the Assembly must be that of the Senate.” Otherwise, winning a majority of deputies will be an almost impossible mission.
.