It’s a Pyrrhic victory for the presidential camp. The final adoption Tuesday evening of the law on immigration is certainly a parliamentary victory for Emmanuel Macron but it also opens a deep divide within his majority, part of which has turned away from a text supported at the last minute by the RN.
After 18 months of twists and turns, the Assembly voted on the text with 349 votes for and 186 votes against, out of 573 voters, LR and RN joining their votes to that of the majority including Renaissance, Horizons and Modem. The latter was divided: it missed 59 votes, out of 251 deputies, between votes against and abstentions. These defections were counterbalanced by LR’s 62 favorable votes.
Darmanin’s Coué method
“The majority was solid,” judged Gérald Darmanin. But the result sketches a less positive picture: out of 170 Renaissance deputies, 131 deputies voted for, 20 abstained and 17 voted against, including the president of the law committee Sacha Houlié, former ministers Stéphane Travert and Nadia Hai and the former president of the group Gilles Le Gendre.
The slump also affects the government: the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau presented his resignation to the Prime Minister, without us knowing during the night whether it had been accepted. Several ministers unfavorable to the text, such as Clément Beaune (Transport), Patrice Vergriete (Housing) or Sylvie Retailleau (Higher Education), were also received in the evening at Matignon. In this heavy atmosphere, members of the government will meet for a Council of Ministers at the Elysée this Wednesday morning.
A sort of bridge between the majority and the center-left refractory to the Nupes, the Progressive Federation of former socialist minister François Rebsamen had demanded to vote against the text. Above all, he advocates the creation of a “progressive group in the Assembly”. The divide is also felt among young people with Macron. They had in fact called on parliamentarians and ministers to oppose the text.
The MoDem divided
On the side of the allies, if Horizons, the party of Edouard Philippe, largely approved the text – 28 for, 2 against – the MoDem was divided: thirty for, 5 against and 15 abstentions. The president of the group Jean-Paul Mattei, who abstained, left the deputies “free to vote”. Historical ally of the president, François Bayrou, the head of the MoDem, had made it known that he would not accept a law on immigration “claimed by the RN”.
“It’s going to leave its mark. And not just in Parliament. I think we don’t yet realize the repercussions,” said a majority executive after the vote. “We are in the hands of the RN, we have lost on all counts” and Marine Le Pen “won everything”, exasperated a Renaissance MP. It now remains to be seen whether Emmanuel Macron will experience at the end of his five-year term the episode of rebelliousness experienced by his predecessor François Hollande.