Left aside since the debate on pension reform, the French governmental right-wing party Les Républicains has decided to go back on the offensive by proposing an ambitious anti-immigration plan aimed at destabilising Emmanuel Macron’s party.
On Monday, May 21st, the three main leaders of Les Républicains detailed in the press the content of the two bills they intend to propose to the national assembly. The idea, according to the party’s President Éric Ciotti, is to “totally change the framework of migration policy,” and to give France the means to “stop mass immigration.” Bruno Retailleau, leader of Les Républicains in the Senate, justified the bills by saying, “The French tell us in all the polls that there are too many immigrants. We must regain control.”
Their project has two parts. The first is constitutional.
The first bill aims to allow a referendum on migration policy, which the constitution of the Fifth Republic in its current state does not allow. Currently, referendums can only be held on the organisation of public powers or economic, social, and environmental reforms. This constitutional change would also make it possible to enshrine in the Constitution “the possibility of derogating from the primacy of treaties and European law when the fundamental interests of the nation are at stake,” said Bruno Retailleau, who believes that this is currently the case with immigration out of control.
The Danish policy on immigration control is often highlighted in the French right-wing press. But the equivalent is not possible in France today, because Denmark, when it joined the European Union, was able to negotiate margins of manoeuvre in relation to the treaties in a way that France, a founding country, does not enjoy.
The second bill is based on four structuring principles: control of social and medical aid, described as the “suction pumps” of immigration; facilitation of deportations; reinstatement of the double penalty, and finally restrictions on the droit du sol (jus soli)—so that it no longer applies, for example, to a child whose parents are foreigners in an illegal situation.
Les Républicains intends to achieve several objectives with this offensive. First, it is important for the party to appear united and reconciled after the divisive episode that accompanied the vote on the pension reform when the party split between supporters and opponents of the bill—the latter having sent a signal at the time that they were ready to overthrow the government, but without being followed by all of the parliamentarians from their group.
Second, on the highly sensitive subject of immigration, Les Républicains want to appear to be in tune with the state of French public opinion, which demands, in poll after poll, rigour and firmness in the management of immigration. Their project will therefore be much firmer than the one timidly proposed by Emmanuel Macron’s party, which for the moment is postponed to the Greek calends–not before July in the best case.
Finally, they hope to appear as the inescapable arbiters of the currently blocked political game and take advantage of the deep discredit that strikes the presidential party to become the most credible political recourse. Their tactic is audacious: if the government persists in proposing “lax” measures on immigration, they announce that they will assume their role as opponents this time by proposing a motion of censure against the government. The French “expect a real reform,” said Olivier Marleix, leader of the LR deputies. “This is why I will table a motion of censure if the government tries to pass a lax text through 49.3” on the subject of immigration, he warned.
Since the publication in the press of the project supported by Les Républicains, the Rassemblement National has been firing at their centre-right rival, on the grounds that their bill is a pale copy of Marine Le Pen’s project, which the national Right party has been defending for years.
On the Public Sénat channel, MP Laure Lavalette, spokeswoman for the Rassemblement National in the national assembly, pointed out the many similarities between the two LR bills and the presidential programme of her candidate.
“If this is not plagiarism or copy and paste, I wonder what it is,” she said.
Beyond the similarities, Laure Lavalette underlines two major shortcomings, according to her, in the alternative project of the Republicans: the absence of a provision on national priority (to employment or social assistance), and the maintenance of the main lines of the droit du sol, against which the Rassemblement National has been fighting for years. Finally, the major argument of the RN against LR is that of credibility: many times, the LR, and before them, the UMP party, have promised firmness on the migration issue without ever acting on it when they were in power. This being the case, although the Rassemblement National considers the LR’s text to be incomplete, it will not refrain from voting for it because it would be “a step in the right direction.”
The parliamentary group of Les Républicains must wait a little before being able to formally submit its bills, as priority is still given to texts proposed by the government. However, by raising the possibility of a motion of censure against the government if it persists in imposing a project deemed inadequate, it clearly shows its political capacity to bounce back.
