The government bill on immigration, which has just been presented to the Council of Ministers, will represent “a few thousand” regularizations per year, said Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt on Saturday.
“We work on a few thousand a year,” said Dussopt on France Inter, who, as Minister of Integration, carries this text alongside Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior.
The other sensitive site
The government, already exposed to dispute over the pension reform, opened another sensitive project this week with the presentation to the Council of Ministers of a bill on immigration.
This text claims a balance between “firmness” and “humanity”, in the words of President Emmanuel Macron, by including both sections on expulsions and regularizations. But it targets the oppositions of left and right for opposite reasons. And the majority, itself, appears divided between its left wing and its right wing on the adjustments to be made to this project.
Skepticism about the adjustment ceiling
Dussopt refrained from giving a more precise estimate of the number of regularizations to be expected, stressing that it was difficult to get an idea of the current situation. “When we talk about irregular situations, generally there is no exact census otherwise it would not exist in irregular form,” he explained.
The main integration measure concerns the creation of a residence permit which would regularize the situation of undocumented migrants who have already been hired for several years in sectors which are struggling to recruit, such as catering. But this measure arouses opposition from the right and the far right, including Republican (LR) parliamentarians, whose support could be crucial to have the text adopted.
As such, Olivier Dussopt expressed his skepticism about the idea, launched by Gérald Darmanin to reassure the right, of imposing a ceiling on the adjustments made in this context. “The measure would not necessarily be useful because I think it does not concern tens of thousands of people”, judged Dussopt on France Inter.