2023-12-20 02:07:56
Even after the French Parliament passed the controversial immigration law, the government under President Emmanuel Macron is under pressure. Shortly after the law was approved, Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau submitted his resignation on Wednesday night, according to media reports. He was considered an opponent of the stricter legal text, which had caused violent conflicts within the government camp that now had to be smoothed over.
According to reports, Macron wants to comment on the law this Wednesday. With the project, the government wants to better control immigration and improve integration. However, the adopted legal text is significantly more restrictive than originally intended.
Regular migrants should only receive social benefits such as housing subsidies or family allowances later than before. Parliament is to debate annual immigration quotas. In addition, the crime of irregular residence, which was abolished under socialist President François Hollande in 2012, is to be reintroduced. Dual nationals who commit crimes against law enforcement officers should also lose their French nationality. One of the core measures of the government’s plan, according to which migrants who previously worked without residence documents in professions with a shortage of staff should be given a temporary residence permit, will only come in a significantly limited form.
Even before the vote in parliament, there had been media reports that several ministers from the left wing of the government were considering resigning. The newspapers “Le Figaro” and “Le Parisien” reported on Wednesday night that it was unclear whether Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne had accepted Health Minister Rousseau’s resignation.
Macron’s center camp has no longer had an absolute majority in the French National Assembly since the parliamentary elections in June 2022 and is therefore dependent on votes from the opposition for their projects. After the left-wing camp, the conservative Républicains and the right-wing National Rassemblement National rejected the legal text in the National Assembly last week before the plenary debate, the centrist government sought a compromise in a commission. To secure the Conservatives’ approval, she made significant concessions to them. Resistance then also came from within their own ranks.
On Tuesday evening, the Senate, the upper house of the French Parliament, initially gave the green light to the project. Approval in the conservative chamber was considered certain. In the National Assembly, 349 members ultimately voted for the text and 186 voted against it. Members of the Macron camp were also among those voting against.
The voting behavior in the National Assembly is likely to be taken into account again on Wednesday. Although the right-wing national Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National failed to pass the bill last week, the MPs have now voted for the plan – as Le Pen had previously announced.
This announcement put the Macron camp under pressure. It did not want the law to be passed only with the help of the right-wing nationalists. However, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin emphasized on Wednesday night that the text had not only been adopted thanks to the votes of the Rassemblement National. The majority without right-wing nationalists was large.
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