It is the measure of the immigration law which provokes the most reactions: it establishes a distinction between French people and foreigners in receiving social benefits. The Prime Minister considers that this is not “national preference”.
The immigration law adopted by Parliament on December 19 continues to generate turmoil. The text is considered by the left as the crossing of a red line, by introducing into the law provisions that the National Rally and before it the National Front have defended for years.
The most controversial measure and which crystallizes most of the indignation is that which establishes waiting periods for foreigners in order to access social benefits, such as family allowances: 5 years for foreigners not working and thirty months for foreigners in employment. For APL, 5 years of residence on French territory will be required for unemployed foreigners, 3 months for others.
So is it national preference? Elisabeth Borne, this Wednesday, December 20, considered that no, on the air of France Inter: “We distinguish people not because they are French or foreign, but because they come to study with us, because “They come to work with us or they don’t work. It corresponds to what we are talking about, integration through work, that’s what is mentioned in the text,” she assures. The Prime Minister also argues that she has no more created a distinction between foreigners and French people than when François Hollande introduced a deadline of 5 for foreigners by implementing the activity bonus. Elisabeth also drew a parallel with Michel Rocard and the RMI which also distinguishes access to these benefits depending on whether you are French or not, with different deadlines.
Can we therefore consider that the waiting periods established by the immigration law are simply technical adjustments? These modalities are necessarily considered in the light of certain principles, including the principle of equality before the law. “This is a disguised national preference. The objective, or desired effects, of national preference is to exclude foreigners simply by virtue of being foreigners. This time, you almost achieve the same thing if you lay down a condition that is increasingly difficult for foreigners to meet,” estimates, for example, Antoine Math, researcher at the Institute for Economic and Social Research, with Mediapart.
The National Rally, for its part, is proud of an “ideological victory” for its camp, considering very clearly that the principle of national preference is enshrined in this text. In 2022, Marine Le Pen had this proposal in her program: reserve family allowances “exclusively for French people” and make other benefits, such as APL or the disabled adult allowance, conditional on five years of work for foreigners. What she called “the national priority”.
For the Defender of Rights, an independent organization whose mission is to fight against discrimination, the observation is simple: “By providing, for these same foreigners, to defer over time access to a certain number of social benefits, the text […] calls into question fundamental rights and seriously undermines the principles of equality and non-discrimination, the bedrock of our Republic.”
The head of government also indicated on France Inter that state medical aid (AME) for undocumented foreigners would “not be eliminated”, after having committed to carrying out a reform at the start of 2024 on this text, with LR.