Towards an agreement between the right and the majority on the immigration bill? The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, said “confident”, Sunday December 17, on such an outcome, on the eve of the meeting of a joint committee (CMP) which must decide the fate of the text. The latter could not be examined in public session last week, due to the vote on a motion to reject it by the opposition groups.
“I am confident because (…) discussions continue (…). Today, there is a desire for agreement (…) on the part of the government, on the part of the presidential majority and on the part of part of our opposition”said M.me Braun-Pivet (Renaissance) on BFM-TV.
Without wishing to anticipate the result of the CMP which will bring together seven senators and seven deputies on Monday at 5 p.m., Mme Braun-Pivet agreed that a “general agreement” would be ” probably “ found before. Within the government, the Minister of Solidarity, Aurore Bergé, maintained for her part, Sunday on France 3, that an agreement was “possible and desirable”.
Ciotti claims to have “consolidated all the major achievements of the Senate”
The Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, who began discussions with leaders of the Les Républicains (LR) party on Wednesday, received them again on Sunday evening. “At this stage, we cannot speak of an agreement”Eric Ciotti told Agence France-Presse (AFP) after this third meeting which lasted more than two and a half hours.
The president of LR warned that he was waiting ” for tomorrow morning “ on the one hand a “letter which must be addressed to the President of the Senate on the timetable for a reform of the AME [Aide médicale d’Etat pour les étrangers sans papiers] that we want to see achieved at the beginning of 2024” And ” commitment “ of the government on “accelerated means for the removal and expulsion of illegal immigrants”, judging ” too slow “ the executive’s timetable to create 3,000 retention places in 2027.
On the other points under debate, Mr. Ciotti assured that the principle had been ” act “ that foreigners in a regular situation “who do not work” must have five years of presence in the territory to benefit from social benefits. “We are working on making a difference for those who work”, he assured. The president of the Republicans also said he was waiting for a ” new “ drafting of article 4 bis relating to the regularization of undocumented workers in professions in shortage, expressing the hope that “these decisions are completely exceptional, very regulated, as the Senate did”.
“We have consolidated all the major achievements of the Senate”assured Mr. Ciotti, who was accompanied by the leaders of LR deputies Olivier Marleix and LR senators Bruno Retailleau.
“We have to take a step”
The text, which the right-wing majority Senate has considerably toughened compared to the government’s initial version, serves as the basis for discussions. “It is therefore this text and this alone that we want to vote for”had reaffirmed Eric Ciotti in the morning in The Sunday Journal.
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Asked about the concessions that the majority is ready to make towards the right-wing party, Yaël Braun-Pivet said “supporter of compromise”without “transact on [ses] values ».
She admitted that one point was particularly debated, that of social benefits paid to foreigners in a legal situation. The Senate text plans to require foreigners to have to prove five years of residence to be able to benefit from allowances such as personalized housing assistance (APL) or family allowances, compared to six months currently. A compromise option would be a duration of three years.
“Will we find an agreement on this point? We want it. We are not in favor of this article. Afterwards, you have to take a step”observed the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.
Imposing such an extension of the deadline is a compromise which “costs the majority”admitted Mr. Darmanin on BFM-TV. “This was not the general idea of the majority at the beginning and I think that if we want an agreement, we can agree, for example, to withdraw the disabled adult allowance (AAH)”of the basket of social benefits likely to be affected by a longer period for a foreigner in a legal situation to be able to claim to benefit from them, he explained.
The President of the National Assembly also affirmed to be open to the end of the automaticity of the right of soil, and to the fact that young people born in France of foreign parents express their desire to acquire French nationality to obtain it .
Boris Vallaud calls the left wing of the majority “to reason”
“We are in a complicated political moment”with “a National Assembly without an absolute majority”, “it is the choice of the French and therefore our role as political leaders is to work with this Assembly to try to find a way to be able to act”explained Mme Braun-Pivet.
On the left, the leader of the socialist deputies, Boris Vallaud, called in La Tribune Sunday “the humanists of Macronie to reason and coherence” as well as “refuse the agreement written behind the back of the CMP in defiance of the separation of powers, in the office of the Prime Minister under the dictation of the right”.
On LCI, the president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, said he was opposed to a text “which will allow the regularization of illegal workers”though there is “on the surface some measures which speed up administrative procedures” expulsions.