“A break in the protection of rights and freedoms. » This is how the Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, denounces the bill on immigration, which arrives at the National Assembly next week, in a column in the newspaper The world.
This project, toughened by the Senate in November and debated from this Monday in the Assembly, “removes a number of guarantees currently provided to protect the fundamental rights of foreigners”, writes Claire Hédon.
“The numerous attacks on rights and freedoms” of the project
The removal of foreigners would thus be “very largely left to the discretion of the administration”, by increasing the possibilities of refusal or withdrawal of the right to stay. “Extremely short appeal deadlines” would also complicate access to the judge.
The Defender of Rights recalls having already “warned about the numerous attacks on rights and freedoms” of the project, since its presentation to the Senate at the beginning of November.
The reform, which initially rested on two legs (controlling immigration and improving integration), now leans clearly towards the repressive aspect, in the opinion of many observers.
Integration versus residence permit… or the other way around?
“The text supports the idea, however denied by numerous studies, according to which reception conditions that are “too favorable” would encourage irregular immigration or the lasting settlement of foreigners in the territory,” the Defender further writes in the tribune. “Ubiquitous in the parliamentary debate, this speech pushed the legislator to consider restrictions on numerous rights, particularly for particularly vulnerable people.”
Claire Hédon is also concerned about an inversion of the relationship between obtaining a residence permit and integration. The first was originally designed as a guarantee of the second, the Defender essentially recalls. The bill reinforces a situation where a long-term residence permit is issued as a reward for integration deemed successful, she adds.
The dehumanization of prefectures
The “extreme deterioration of the rights of foreigners living in France” is all the greater because “the failure of prefectural services largely contributes to it”, according to Claire Hédon, who criticizes the “lack of human interlocutors” and the delays in waiting.
It recalls the need for a balance between the sovereign right of States to regulate access to territory and the necessary protection of fundamental rights. Before concluding that the “bill profoundly upsets this balance”, to the detriment in particular of the “principles of dignity and equality”.