The Sages made the decision straight to the point. The Constitutional Council largely censored, this Thursday, January 25, the controversial immigration law adopted in December, removing numerous firm measures obtained by the right.
The Sages censored more than a third of the text (35 of the 86 articles of the bill). In detail, 32 are judged to have no sufficient link with the text, including the tightening of access to social benefits, family reunification, or the establishment of a “return deposit” for foreign students. These are “legislative riders”, which could however reappear later in other texts. Three other articles are partially or totally censored on the merits, including the establishment of migration quotas set by Parliament.
Most of the measures irritating for the presidential camp did not pass the filter of the nine judges seized on this criticized text, voted at the end of 2023 with the support of the National Rally.
Macron asks Darmanin to apply the law “as soon as possible”
Emmanuel Macron, who has yet to officially promulgate it, asked Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin to “do everything possible to ensure that the law is applied as quickly as possible”, while being satisfied to see the government measures “validated( es) almost entirely”, according to those around him.
“The government takes note […] of the censorship of numerous articles added to Parliament, for non-compliance with parliamentary procedure”, reacted on government text.
In a message published on, the president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, for his part denounced “a coup by the judges, with the support of the President of the Republic himself”. LR boss Eric Ciotti called for constitutional reform “more essential than ever to safeguard the destiny of France”. “This censorship was expected by Emmanuel Macron and the left,” the Alpes-Maritimes deputy reacted on X. Conversely, the boss of the PS Olivier Faure expressed on under pressure from LR”.
At the head of the Constitutional Council, Laurent Fabius found himself despite himself “in the middle of contradictory passions”, and caught in a vice: pressured by many to widely censor the text. But the first of the Sages has always ruled out any political dimension to his decisions, emphasizing that the role of the Constitutional Council is limited to verifying the conformity of legal texts with the Constitution.