Alexandre Chauveau // Photo credit: Xose Bouzas / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 10:25 a.m., December 11, 2023

Will the arrival of the immigration bill in the National Assembly on Monday be the revealing element of the union of the Republicans? The LR deputies announced that they did not wish to vote for the text as it stands, but some hesitated between voting for the Greens' motion of rejection or letting the debates take place before the nation's deputies.

This is a decisive day for Gérald Darmanin. This Monday, the immigration bill arrives in the hemicycle of the National Assembly with, for Gérald Darmanin, the stake of his political credibility. The text, which has already been reworked several times, could be pilloried as early as this afternoon with the motion for prior rejection put forward by the Greens.

>> Watch Europe 1 Matin in replay and podcast here

"Any disunity makes us unreadable"

But in order to find a majority, the Minister of the Interior is targeting the elected representatives of the independent Liot group, but also the elected Republicans. But in the ranks of the right-wing party, they are trying to close ranks and show unity in the face of this text, which is considered too lax.

"Any disunity makes us illegible," warns Olivier Marleix. The president of the LR group in the Assembly, like Éric Ciotti, calls for the rejection of Gérald Darmanin's text, guilty, according to him, of encouraging massive regularisation of undocumented migrants. This position is shared at this stage by a large majority of right-wing MEPs who are opposed to the watered-down text from the Law Committee, but some of them are likely to evolve depending on the discussions to come in the hemicycle.

The party is torn between its willingness to debate and to oppose the government head-on

This is what is at stake for the Minister of the Interior, who is looking for around twenty votes for LR and all the work of Éric Ciotti and Olivier Marleix, who are more concerned than ever about the party's credibility. Unity therefore remains fragile and will face its first litmus test this afternoon with the motion to reject tabled by the Greens.

Some are expected to vote for it and thus show their frontal opposition to the government. Others, on the other hand, plead in principle for debate and will abstain at 16 p.m. at the time of the vote. In any case, the sequence appears to be a turning point for the right, which is still rebuilding and seeking clarity after the failure of the last presidential election.