Immigration law: the Senate does not want a text "to the cut", warns Larcher

The Conference of Presidents of the Senate (which brings together all the presidents of the political groups) recorded Wednesday evening the withdrawal from the agenda of this controversial text, carried by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and Labour Olivier Dussopt.

Adopted last week in committee - with several stricter provisions - it was to be examined at first reading in the hemicycle from next Tuesday.

The Conference of Presidents "has been very clear", said Gérard Larcher: it "agrees" that the text should be withdrawn from the agenda, but its examination "can only be postponed".

In a letter to Mr. Larcher on Wednesday, of which AFP had a copy, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne explains this withdrawal to "be able to build with the two assemblies, the best method to move forward as quickly as possible on these major issues, without calling into question the strong ambitions of this text both on the control of immigration and on the field of integration".

"There is no question for the Conference of Presidents of a text that is sausage as was mentioned by the President of the Republic," continued Gérard Larcher. The head of state announced Wednesday that the bill, which satisfies neither the right nor the left, would be divided into "several texts".

But for the president of the Senate, "a migration policy is a whole".

"It is a text, like pensions, essential, which must be debated on the substance and which must provide answers," he stressed.

"The passage in slalom is undoubtedly an interesting exercise for skiers, but I think that in politics you need consistency, courage," he said.

Mr Larcher also recalled that he himself had requested the postponement of consideration of the text. "I take my responsibilities, it was I who discussed Sunday evening with the President of the Republic the need for such an important text (to be) examined in peaceful conditions," he said.

Criticizing a "rather baroque method", Socialist MP Jérôme Guedj recalled that "this reform was presented to us as absolutely essential, while it was only Macron who sought to run on the lands of the extreme right". "If you sausage, you take a little bit here, a little bit there, that's not a policy," he said on franceinfo.

"Make a law for a law and a law that will ultimately increase the problems in terms of immigration, it is better to do nothing," said RN deputy Thomas Ménagé on RMC.

© 2023 AFP