The “Sages” of the Constitutional Council have widely censored the immigration law, including numerous toughening measures adopted in December under pressure from the right, a major development in this soap opera which has rocked the majority. Tightening of access to social benefits for foreigners, annual migratory quotas, tightening of family reunification criteria, student “return bond”… Most of the measures irritating for the presidential camp did not pass the filter of the nine judges seized on this criticized text, voted at the end of 2023 with the support of the National Rally.
“The Constitutional Council validates the entire text of the Government”, welcomed the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin on X, adding that the executive “takes note […] of the censorship of numerous articles added to Parliament, for non-compliance with parliamentary procedure.” Conversely, the boss of the RN Jordan Bardella denounced “a coup by the judges, with the support of the President of the Republic himself”. “The immigration law is stillborn. The only solution is the referendum on immigration,” he insisted.
32 articles censored
The decision of the Constitutional Council, scrutinized by associations defending undocumented immigrants as well as by all political forces in the country, reshuffles the cards quite widely, before the promulgation of the text by Emmanuel Macron. Indeed, 35 of the 86 articles of the bill were totally or partially censored according to the decision, the Council considering for the majority of them – 32, precisely – that they had no place within the scope of the bill. this text of law. These are “legislative riders”, which could however reappear later in other texts.
For the Macronist left wing, very reluctant to certain measures to the point of arousing the moods of several ministers – Aurélien Rousseau had resigned from Health -, it will be greeted with a certain relief: Emmanuel Macron himself had seized the “wise”, without hiding his skepticism in the face of several measures nevertheless voted for by his majority. For the opposition Republicans (LR) and the National Rally, the broad censorship of numerous emblematic measures of the right and the extreme right risks relaunching the debate on a possible constitutional reform, constantly brandished by these parties on the questions migratory.
Especially legislative “riders”
Very controversial, the measure extending the length of residence required so that non-Europeans in a legal situation can benefit from certain social benefits (APL, family allowances, etc.) has thus been completely censored. Ditto for the tightening of the criteria for family reunification (with a required length of residence increasing from eighteen to twenty-four months), the establishment of a “return deposit” for foreign students or the end of the automaticity of the land law for the children of foreigners born in France.
The establishment of annual migration quotas determined by Parliament after a mandatory debate was deemed unconstitutional, which will set a precedent. The bill nevertheless retains the structure initially desired by the government, with a large component of simplification of procedures for expelling delinquent foreigners, one of the objectives of Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin. Unsurprisingly, the article on the regularization of undocumented workers in professions in shortage, which had crystallized the debates of the fall, is well validated by the wise people.
Not “a chamber of appeal for Parliament’s choices”
The Beauvau services have also used the calendar to publish in parallel on Thursday the – record – immigration figures for 2023, with an acceleration of expulsions as well as regularizations of undocumented workers. Statistics which, according to Mr. Darmanin, reflect the “political priorities” contained in this bill. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets again on Sunday against the law. And opponents – associations, collectives, lawyers, unions – had planned to denounce Thursday at the Council in Paris a text “seriously infringing on the rights of exiled people”.
The Constitutional Council, already in the spotlight during the pension reform, is not “a chamber of appeal for the choices of Parliament”, recalled its president, the former socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius. If too many measures were declared unconstitutional, “we will simply have to return to the proposal that was ours” to revise the Constitution, President LR of the Senate Gérard Larcher warned on Tuesday. But this reform, providing for the possibility of derogating from EU rules, is excluded by the majority.