look back at a year and a half of impasse – L’Express

In the middle of summer 2022, the Minister of the Interior announces that he will present “at the start of the school year in September” a law to lift “all legislative reservations” preventing the expulsion of delinquent foreigners. The government, he explains, has “decided to focus on foreigners who commit criminal acts”.

The following week, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne requested its postponement – the first in a long series. There will first be a “major parliamentary debate” after consultations at the start of the school year.

The text, which was to be examined at the end of 2022, will be presented “from the beginning of 2023”, announces President Emmanuel Macron who hopes to put an end to an “absurd”, “ineffective” and “inhumane” migration policy.

“Be bad to the bad and kind to the good”: this is how the Minister of the Interior summarizes the philosophy of the law on November 2. A repressive aspect on expulsions and an outstretched hand for immigrant workers. On this second aspect, the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt proposes the creation of a “occupation in tension” residence permit to regularize undocumented immigrants in sectors with a labor shortage. This is the article which will crystallize most of the criticism on the right. The government praises this “balance” between “firmness” and “humanity” during the parliamentary debate.

Two weeks before its examination in the Senate, the text begins its legislative journey in committee on March 15. The senators inserted a series of amendments which considerably toughened the text.

Against a backdrop of social discontent over pensions, Emmanuel Macron announces one week before the examination that the project will be “divided” into “shorter texts”. The exam scheduled for March 28 will not take place.

180 degree turn the following month: on April 23, Emmanuel Macron announced a law “in a single text”.

New twist three days later. The bill will not be presented immediately. The Prime Minister announced this by presenting her roadmap: “Today, there is no majority to vote for such a text,” she said, pushing back the deadline to the fall.

Elisabeth Borne finally asks Gérald Darmanin to relaunch consultations to present this text “in July” to the Council of Ministers, with a view to an examination in the fall.

The consultations bogged down and the Republicans tabled two bills in May, including one in favor of a constitutional reform making it possible to circumvent international treaties.

The Minister of the Interior ends up brushing aside the hypothesis of a new version in July. “The government proposes to take up the text as it was discussed and amended by the Senate Law Committee,” he explains. The examination will resume after the senatorial elections (September 24). Return, therefore, to the situation of March 2023.

From November 7 to 14, the text was examined in the Senate, which ended up adopting a considerably tougher version of the initial project, amended by numerous right-wing markers: elimination of State medical aid reserved for undocumented immigrants, tightening criteria for family reunification, tightening of land law, policy of annual migratory “quotas”… A victory in a Senate controlled by the right and the center, trumpets Gérald Darmanin, who extols the virtues of “compromise”.

The text from the Senate has since been largely nuanced by the Law Commission of the National Assembly, but the bill brings together opposition against it for various reasons. As a result, the deputies voted on Monday for the motion to reject the environmentalists, supported by LR and the RN, a major setback for the executive. Gérald Darmanin immediately proposed his resignation, refused by President Macron.

The executive can now choose to let the text continue its legislative journey in the Senate, for a second reading, or in a joint committee. Or decide, purely and simply, to abandon it.