Valérie Pécresse directs her electoral campaign on the controversial subject of immigration. The candidate for the nomination of the right to the presidential one presented this Tuesday a project of constitutional revision, which she will defend if she is elected in 2022. She proposes in it twelve principles to “stop suffering, and regain control of our destiny and the sovereignty of our borders ”, considering the control of migratory flows as a“ major societal challenge ”.
Establishment of maximum annual immigration ceilings voted by Parliament each year and distributed according to geographical areas and States of origin, renegotiation of agreements with foreign countries, and asylum application at the border and urgent examination with the obligation to leaving French territory “without delay” are at the heart of his draft constitutional law.
“Master the French language” to obtain a residence permit
The president of the Ile-de-France region also proposes to subject the issuance of residence permits to three “very strict” conditions: having “sufficient resources” (increased “by 25%”), “mastering the French language” and “Respect secularism and the values of the Republic”.
Valérie Pécresse also wishes to pay non-contributory social benefits (social allowances, housing assistance, etc.) “only after five years of regular stay in France”. “We should not come to France for benefits, but to find a job and integrate,” she pleaded. In addition, Valérie Pécresse wants to insert, after the last paragraph of article 2 of the Constitution: “The Republic limits the number of foreign nationals authorized to stay in France”.
“Inability” of the government to drive back the illegals
The ex-LR blasted an “uncontrolled immigration on which the government failed and no longer controls anything”, with, according to her in particular, a “record number of issuance of residence permits, an inability to return illegal immigrants and rejected the right to asylum in their country of origin and endless delays ”.
She lamented that Emmanuel Macron did not achieve, as he had promised in 2017, “100% execution of OQTF” (obligations to leave French territory), but “only 12% in 2020,” Covid year “, and a little less than 25% under the then Minister of the Interior, Mr. Castaner”. “The objective is to go much higher than these figures”, she said, while judging zero immigration “neither possible nor desirable”.