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Demonstration against the tightening of the migration law in Paris
Photo: Olivier Donnars / Le Pictorium / IMAGO / Le Pictorium
The French Constitutional Council has scrapped large parts of the controversial immigration law.
Three of the articles were at least partially unconstitutional, and more than 30 of the 86 articles had nothing to do with the original aim of the text, the institution emphasized.
Similar to the German Federal Constitutional Court, the Constitutional Council reviews laws and projects for their legality.
For President Emmanuel Macron, the law should be a key reform of his second term in office.
Ultimately, he was only able to get it through with the votes of the opposition, including those of the right-wing National Rally.
The tightening measures implemented by the right caused resentment in parts of the government camp.
Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau resigned in protest.
The left-wing camp recently mobilized for nationwide demonstrations against the law at the weekend.
In particular, Rassemblement National celebrated the fact that non-EU foreigners in France should only receive some social benefits after five years of residence as an “ideological victory”.
The party saw this as enshrining the principle of “national preference”.
Some constitutional lawyers, however, viewed this part of the law as a violation of the principle of equality.
Macron himself expected corrections from the Constitutional Council
After the law was passed, Macron openly admitted that he expected a correction by the Constitutional Council - and, in an unusual step, himself involved the country's highest constitutional body.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin welcomed on Thursday that the Constitutional Council had approved all articles of the original government draft.
"The government notes the rejection of numerous articles added in parliament," he wrote on the online service X, formerly Twitter.
more on the subject
Macron's new course: SubmissionA commentary by Leo Klimm, Paris
As a result of the wrangling over the law, Macron saw his government, which has not had an absolute majority in parliament for a year and a half, permanently weakened.
In January, he reshuffled the government and replaced Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne with the whiz kid Gabriel Attal, who is now leading the new government at just 34 years old.
mrc/slü/AFP