Paris (AFP)

Quotas of immigrants for certain jobs, three months of deficiency for asylum seekers before accessing the Secu Basic, Edouard Philippe details Wednesday its measures on immigration already widely unveiled and controversial.

These decisions punctuate a long sequence initially desired by the executive, eager not to leave this theme to the right and far right, but then escaped by deviating in recent weeks, including the wearing of the veil and secularism .

The Prime Minister should score, after an Interministerial Committee on Immigration, about twenty measures already exposed Monday evening to part of the presidential majority and have largely leaked: in particular the introduction of a deadline three months before asylum seekers can access Universal Health Protection (PUMa, basic social security), and the need for prior approval by the Secu for certain non-urgent acts in the context of State Medical Aid (AME).

"Quotas" or "quantified objectives" of "professional" immigrants will be set each year, starting in the summer of 2020, so that "France recruits" according to its work needs, added Tuesday the Minister of Labor Muriel Penicaud.

The "list of jobs in tension", "not updated since 2008", will be reviewed "with the social partners, the regions," said Secretary of State Gabriel Attal.

Four weeks after the first annual debate in parliament on immigration, Edouard Philippe insisted on a comprehensive plan that is between "openness" and "firmness", before a new debate in 2020 to assess the impact of the measures.

The subject of quotas on immigration resurfaced in January, when Emmanuel Macron, in the midst of the crisis of "yellow vests", long opposed to this idea, had mentioned in his letter to the French "annual objectives".

- "Smoke screen" -

The number of residence permits issued for economic reasons (nearly 33,502 in 2018) represents only a small part of the 255,956 titles granted in 2018, according to preliminary official figures.

This led the National Gathering to shout "political swindle". The head of the RN, Marine Le Pen, denounced "a generalized smokiness" which leads, according to her, to "even more immigration".

A shared sentiment among Republicans, who are wondering about a possible "smokescreen", after having hailed, like the deputy Eric Ciotti, the recent "conversion" Emmanuel Macron to the idea of ​​quotas.

The right, which had already carried this idea in 2007 with the former president Nicolas Sarkozy, had finally abandoned after a report in 2014 which concluded to its inefficiency.

"With six million unemployed, the urgency is not to find employment to the French?", Tuesday night added the head of the RN on FranceInfo.

A position defended by some: the president of the French federation of the building Jacques Chanut, wished "that optimizes the training system of the unemployed".

Conversely, Franck Trouet, of the National Group of Independents of the hotel-restaurant, hopes it "a call of air" of several thousand people who will "consolidate the employment of some French" by avoiding to have to delete services for lack of staff.

- "Subterfuge" -

The ecologist leader of EELV Yannick Jadot has said he is ready to discuss quotas if they allow to "get out of the fantasy that we are invaded" while hoping that it is not a "subterfuge" of the government "for do not talk about the social concerns of the French. He denounces as the left the measures on the AME and the PUMa.

The left accuses Emmanuel Macron of righting his policy to seduce an electorate who has moved away from LR.

Criticism also in the trade union world: Laurent Berger, the general secretary of the CFDT, said he was "shocked" by these measures, regretting that one does not listen more associations of assistance to the migrants and excluded which for their on the other hand, denounced "useless" or even "dangerous" measures.

The head of state is also accused of fueling debates that would play the game of Marine Le Pen, given elbow-to-elbow with him in the first round in 2022 by two recent polls.

"Macron chose his life insurance: it's called Marine Le Pen," said PCF MP Sébastien Jumel Tuesday.

© 2019 AFP