Even after the French parliament passed the controversial immigration law, the government under President Emmanuel Macron is under pressure. Shortly after the law was approved, Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau submitted his resignation on Wednesday evening, according to media reports.
Rousseau was considered an opponent of the stricter legal text, which had led to violent conflicts within the government camp that now had to be smoothed out. According to reports, Macron plans to comment on the law this Wednesday.
With the project, the government wants to better control immigration and improve integration. However, the adopted legal text is considerably more restrictive than originally intended.
Significantly faster pace
Regular migrants should only receive social benefits such as housing subsidies or child benefits later than before. Parliament will debate annual immigration quotas. In addition, the crime of illegal residence, which was abolished in 2012 under Socialist President François Hollande, will be reintroduced. People with dual nationality who commit crimes against law enforcement officers must also lose their French nationality.
One of the core measures of the government project, according to which migrants who previously worked without a residence document in professions with a shortage of personnel should be granted a temporary residence permit, will only come in a very limited form.
Law divides government
Even before the vote in parliament, there were media reports that several ministers from the left wing of the government were considering resigning. The newspapers ‘Le Figaro’ and ‘Le Parisien’ reported on Wednesday evening that it was unclear whether Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne had accepted the resignation of Health Minister Rousseau.
Macron’s centrist camp has no longer had an absolute majority in the French National Assembly since the parliamentary elections in June 2022 and is therefore dependent on opposition votes for their projects.
After the left-wing camp, the conservative Republicans and the right-wing National Rassemblement National rejected the bill in the National Assembly before the plenary debate last week, the centrist government sought a compromise in a committee. To secure the Conservatives’ approval, she made significant concessions to them. The resistance then also came from within its own ranks.
Macron’s people voted against the law
On Tuesday evening, the Senate, the upper house of the French parliament, initially gave the project the green light. Approval in the Conservative chamber was seen as certain. In the National Assembly, 349 members ultimately voted in favor of the text and 186 voted against. Members of the Macron camp were also among those who voted against.
Voting behavior in the National Assembly will probably be taken into account again on Wednesday. Although the right-wing Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National failed to pass the bill last week, parliamentarians have now voted in favor of the plan – as Le Pen had previously announced.
This announcement put pressure on the Macron camp. She did not want the law to be passed only with the help of right-wing nationalists. However, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin emphasized on Wednesday evening that the text was not adopted solely thanks to the votes of the right-wing party. The majority was also that large.
Source: Krone
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