Immigration law: "only the text that comes out of the Senate" is suitable for the LR, insists Ciotti

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 19:00 p.m., December 09, 2023

The senatorial version of the immigration bill is the only one that "suits" LR, its president Éric Ciotti insisted on Saturday, hinting that he could call for a vote in the Assembly on Monday for a motion of rejection tabled by the Greens. "We will decide on Monday our position," Éric Ciotti said in an interview with Le Parisien, referring to the motion, which will be voted on Monday at the Palais Bourbon, where the public examination of the text is due to begin.

The LR deputies are divided, the RN maintains the mystery

The deputies will debate on the basis of the version of the bill adopted by the Assembly's Law Committee, which withdrew some of the "toughening" that the Senate had introduced into it, much to the chagrin of the right. "The adoption of a motion of rejection would lead to a new debate on the Senate's text," Ciotti said in the interview published online on Saturday evening. He recalled that LR had also tabled a motion of rejection, but that it was the motion of the Green deputies that was drawn at random.

"Only the text that came out of the Senate, and only this one suits us," he said, suggesting that it would be logical to vote for the motion, even if tabled by the Greens, whose grievances against the bill are poles apart from those of the right. If all the opposition were to unite in favour of the motion on Monday, consideration of the bill would be interrupted immediately in the Assembly. This would give the Senate back the upper hand, unless the government convenes a joint committee of elected representatives from both chambers.

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But the LR deputies are divided and the RN maintains the mystery of its position. The latter will not disclose its strategy until Monday, RN MP Laure Lavalette said on Friday. While his colleague Jean-Philippe Tanguy told AFP on Thursday that the RN would not vote for it, wishing to "debate". According to Éric Ciotti, the bill toughened in the Senate "has been totally distorted" in committee in the Assembly, illustrating "a total change of course decided by the left wing of the majority and endorsed by Gérald Darmanin", the Minister of the Interior.

"The only condition for voting on this text would be for the government to take up all the points of the Senate in full and to commit to working on a constitutional reform approved by referendum," he said. A reference to the reform of the Constitution advocated by LR, which asks in particular that France can derogate from European rules and that the Parliament sets each year "migratory ceilings".