After the yellow vests, Emmanuel Macron did not hide behind his little finger. On December 10, 2018, he solemnly intervened on television: “I also want us to agree the Nation with itself on what its deep identity is, that we address the issue of immigration. We need face it.” As Captain Haddock would say, this time it’s the same thing, except it’s the exact opposite. After the crisis caused by the pension reform, the president no longer has the strength or the parliamentary majority to “confront” the subject. Wednesday, on TF1 and France 2, he may affirm, the verb high, that the executive was going to take care of many files as if nothing had happened, the fate of the immigration bill comes to prove quite the opposite, at the same time as he underlines the risks of a major political impasse for the rest of the quinquennium. Straight in his boots maybe, but to walk backwards.
In camera of a defense council bringing together around fifteen ministers to prepare the bill, on October 13, 2022, Emmanuel Macron had set the course: he wants all the themes to be addressed – basically, he then asks for the opposite to the result he achieves today with the slicing up of the text.
Monday, Gérald Darmanin understands that nothing will happen as planned: the use of 49.3 and the 9 votes missing from the motion of censure change the situation. Tuesday morning, he hears the president ask his ministers to think about the parliamentary agenda. Tuesday afternoon, he learns – from the tape, as surprising as it may be – that Emmanuel Macron and Gérard Larcher agreed, during a lunch which was also attended by Yaël Braun-Pivet, that the bill, whose The exam in public session was fixed from March 28, is deprogrammed (as will be told Politico).
Gérald Darmanin is not the type to blame the blow for too long. Beauvau has tested all the measures in a poll, all are welcomed, both in the Renaissance electorate and in that of LR. The Minister therefore considers his project as popular as necessary, and persists in thinking that things must go quickly. A consensual bill on asylum, bills that meet the wishes of each other: it is still necessary that “it plays the game in front”, admits an adviser to the executive. Gérard Larcher, who does not like this sausage, is already warning: “Going into slalom is undoubtedly an interesting exercise for skiers, but I think that in politics you need consistency, courage.”
According to our information, the government is also considering how to transpose certain points (such as part of the job shortage residence permit) through regulations.
In the beginning was a presidential will. The asylum and immigration law of Gérard Collomb, dated September 10, 2018, may have set fire to the powder in the majority, it had quickly displayed its shortcomings and its limits. The new project was first conceived as part of the LOPMI (Orientation and Programming Law of the Ministry of the Interior), started at the end of the first five-year term, but the candidate Macron decided to keep cartridges for his election campaign. Gérald Darmanin, confirmed to the Interior after the presidential election of April 2022, is preparing a text that he already wants to tighten up, and very marked Beauvau: it is a question of facilitating the expulsion of delinquent illegal immigrants, of facilitating the settlement of disputes , to deal with the question of asylum. The president does not have the modesty of a gazelle, he delivers his instructions: if France offers more attractive reception conditions than those of its neighbors, it will be necessary to correct.
Darmanin very alone in the government
But a subject arises, which will not facilitate the discussions: labor immigration appears in the bill as Gérald Darmanin presents it in Le FigaroAugust 4, 2022. Emmanuel Macron tells it when he returns from his visits to the provinces, very often, in a café or restaurant, he is asked for a regularization for an undocumented worker.
During the winter, the Minister of the Interior displayed his optimism. He multiplies contacts in all directions, even consults a former CGT official who specializes in the recognition of rights for undocumented workers: the text will be “neither too naive nor too harsh”, here it is in new cantor of “at the same time”. He wants to arrive in Parliament (Senate first, then National Assembly) with significant negotiating margins for LR and to be able to satisfy the left wing of the majority with the work and integration component. “If we are smart as we were for the LOPMI (adopted by a large majority), it should pass”, he confides then. Moreover, it is not only on the right that we are looking for support: as an executive of the Renaissance group says, “Gérald’s bet is to go and provoke abstentions among the socialists and the ecologists”, who would look favorably on the regularizations promised. In Macronie, we are assured that a Green deputy like Julien Bayou would be – in private of course – ready to make concessions.
But Gérald Darmanin will gradually realize that he is very much alone, with his friend Olivier Dussopt. The Minister of Labor quickly learned to hold his tongue on the subject. He first announces that the law will lead to “a few tens of thousands” of regularizations before reducing his estimate to “a few thousand”. Warning, explosive topic. But he, at least, is in the game.
In the government, we are jostling … to avoid supporting the Minister of the Interior. Olivier Véran warns that it is important not to 49.3, as well remove the text rather than come to that. Clément Beaune argues that “in any case we will not score many points on this, above all we risk losing on all counts”. Even those who come from the right are absent subscribers: soon Bruno Le Maire, probably saddened not to come to the aid of his ex-companion from LR, will wonder if the moment is right to open such a project.
At Matignon, Elisabeth Borne has only one obsession, or rather two – managing the Darmanin case, with whom her relations are not fluid; escape the trial of the call for air caused by the new residence permit trades in tension. The right already accuses him of opening the floodgates… She wanted a parliamentary debate, she will judge it catastrophic as the oppositions are sparing in proposals. She knows that there is a problem with the system of foreign labor, she would have been satisfied with a grooming of the circular Valls, which currently governs the regularizations, but validates the device while remaining cautious. “The Prime Minister has experience as a prefect, she knows the difficulty of managing exceptional admissions to the territory”, notes an actor in the file. As the social tensions caused by the pension reform intensify, Matignon’s battle plan is simple: the Senate will adapt to its sauce and vote on a text at the end of March and after that, we will see in June when the Assembly will be seized.
LR senators divided
But at the Hôtel de Lassay, the president of the deputies, Yaël Braun-Pivet, has been warning for some time: the text for which finding a majority will be difficult, it will be that on immigration. “We have no allies, we are alone, the point of balance will not rally either one or the other,” she argues. The president of the law commission, Sacha Houlié, insists on the need to provide a legal framework for the regularization of undocumented migrants but is hostile to any idea of quotas. In the Renaissance group, a working group, led by two deputies with totally opposite lines, fails to agree.
Gérald Darmanin wants to count on the wisdom of the Senate, really? At the Palais du Luxembourg, things are a little more complicated than expected: Eric Ciotti and Bruno Retailleau had agreed, go around there is nothing to see, it will be no. Except that the LR senators are on the subject as the LR deputies are on pensions: divided. The government had taken care to leave minors and the Nationality Code out of the debate to avoid overbidding, but… “The senatorial majority wants to redeem its virginity as an opponent and will unravel everything, harden everything like slobbers and make it unacceptable” , panicked a minister just before the decision of the Elysée to stop everything.
Gérald Darmanin wants to count on the goodwill of the right, really? In the Assembly, Eric Ciotti has a plan to make a majority vote impossible: he is preparing amendments, for example on the question of the veil, which he knows are unacceptable for the macronists – and which he is aware that ‘they’re on the edge of the legislative jumper. That’s not what’s stopping him.
Today the right mourns the disappearance of a text that it had announced that it wanted to fight with the utmost energy. Gérald Darmanin intends to engage quickly. Emmanuel Macron continues to drag his ball: a subject like immigration will never lend itself to his “at the same time”.