At the opening of the debates, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, mentioned the motion for preliminary rejection which must be debated and voted on in a few minutes. “Debating and legislating on integration and immigration means responding to the strong, legitimate and repeated demand of our fellow citizens”he defended from the podium of the Assembly.
“All here, we see it and whatever the French think about the subject, the control of migratory flows, the difficulty of fighting against irregular immigration, the increase in the means given to prefects, prefecture agents, magistrates, to the police is an essential debate, a necessary debate, a debate that no one can reasonably reject out of hand without the National Assembly having been able to discuss it for at least a few moments”, he continued. For the Minister of the Interior, “not talking about immigration today, refusing the debate, means refusing what the French are asking for”.
“Who’s afraid of debate? At least not the presidential majority. Who is afraid of debate? Those who enter into an unnatural alliance agree so that the French do not see things moving forward and to disarm our police and gendarmes”launched the Minister of the Interior in a still sparse chamber.