French parliament set for vote on controversial immigration invoice | EUROtoday

Issued on: 11/12/2023 – 14:13Modified: 11/12/2023 – 14:51

2 min

Originally proposed by Macron’s centrist authorities with a mixture of steps to expel extra undocumented individuals and enhance integration, the textual content now leans firmly in direction of enforcement after its passage by the Senate, which is managed by the proper.

Speaking throughout a ceremony marking the seventy fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Sunday, Macron mentioned that forgetting about the proper of asylum could be a mistake.

“France retains its long tradition of providing asylum for all those whose rights are threatened in their own country, and we will continue to defend this right of asylum,” he mentioned.

“To think that we can solve our contemporary problems by forgetting these rights, which are the very foundation of our Republic in France, but also of the very identity of our Europe, would be not just a political mistake, but a moral one.”

From 4:00 pm (1700 GMT), Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin will on the National Assembly defend the invoice which now additional restricts the flexibility for migrants to carry relations into France, birthright citizenship and welfare advantages.

Read extraFrench immigration invoice would expel ‘foreigners who commit crimes’

However, lawmakers have been anticipated to vote on a rejection movement earlier put ahead by the Greens.

If your entire opposition helps the movement, it might be adopted and interrupt the examination of the two,600 or so amendments. The textual content of the invoice may then be despatched again to the Senate.

The authorities may additionally determine to withdraw the textual content as a result of the rejection movement could be a significant setback.

‘Denial of democracy’

“It would be a denial of democracy not to debate” the invoice, Darmanin advised Europe 1 radio on Monday.

The National Assembly speaker, Yaël Braun-Pivet, talking on RTL, added: “It would be incomprehensible, the Assembly would shoot itself in the foot.”

The passage of the invoice is much from assured within the French parliament’s decrease home, the place no aspect has a majority.

03:49

It is unlikely to move in any type with out assist from the conservative Republicans (LR) within the National Assembly.

Darmanin sought to place stress on the Republicans by highlighting the lifting of protections loved by foreigners who arrived in France earlier than the age of 13 or have been resident there for greater than twenty years.

“If the LR don’t vote for the text that allows 4,000 delinquent foreigners a year to be expelled, what are they going to tell their voters?”, Darmanin mentioned.

Far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen mentioned her National Rally (RN) deputies didn’t assist the proposed laws.

This has intensified hypothesis that the federal government may as soon as once more decide to set off article 49.3 of the structure which permits it to move laws and not using a vote, because it did with contentious pension reforms earlier this 12 months.

But the federal government desires to keep away from wielding this widely-unpopular constitutional hammer which might additionally set off a no confidence vote.

The invoice additionally goals to hurry up asylum utility procedures, facilitate the expulsion of foreigners deemed harmful and regularise the standing of undocumented staff in sectors with labour shortages.

It would introduce an annual quota for the variety of migrant arrivals to be set by parliament, and take away all however emergency medical protection for undocumented individuals.

(AFP)