The battle against immigration law is moving from the parliamentary field to the regulatory field. Definitively adopted Tuesday evening by the Senate and the Assembly, despite the very strong opposition of the left half of the hemicycle, the text born from the agreement between the right and the executive must still clear a few hurdles before being applied . Starting with the filter of the Constitutional Council, where certain measures could be challenged, before the government specifies through implementing decrees the contours of the different provisions. Without waiting for these deadlines, all of the thirty-two departments chaired by the left already intend to refuse to apply one of the most divisive measures in the text: conditioning the payment of non-contributory social assistance to five years of residence on the national territory.
If the public debate has crystallized around personalized housing assistance (APL) – which is financed by the State – the departments are responsible for paying the personalized autonomy allowance (APA), intended for the elderly. Wednesday morning, the president (various left, ex-PS) of the Lot Departmental Council called on his counterparts not to “apply the principle of national preference for our elders”. An approach that all of his colleagues will imitate, according to our information.
The revolt is led by the PS president of the Gironde department, Jean-Luc Gleyze, who leads the left group in the Assembly of French Departments (ADF). “Here we are in a situation where we must no longer only guarantee universal rights, but first of all fight to protect them from dangerous electoral, financial and xenophobic logics. More than ever, we are touching on a France which risks seeing the ideas of Vichy return, whitewashed,” alarms the head of the south-west department. For its part, the ADF does not wish to comment for the moment.
To avoid being subject to the future applicable provisions of the text, communities will have to create a new autonomy allowance – based on the model of that which already exists -, intended for beneficiaries excluded by law. “This represents a cost for the department but we assume it in view of the shameful provisions of this text”, one indicates in the entourage of the president of Lot. Such a system must, however, be ratified by the departmental council, which should be the case for Lot during a meeting scheduled for the beginning of February.
As for the PS president of Seine-Saint-Denis, Stéphane Troussel, who sharply criticized the executive’s bill throughout its examination, he declared that he wanted to make his department “a republican shield in the face of the preference national”. “All the inhabitants of Seine-Saint-Denis deserve solidarity and humanity. Wherever they come from,” he defended on account
The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo called on all major cities on Monday to “resist” in the face of a policy deemed “populist”. She herself declared that she wanted to make the capital a “land of democratic and humanist resistance”, opening the door to a refusal to apply certain provisions of the law. “We are thinking about ways to limit the impact of this shameful law,” whispers those around the mayor of Paris. Words that resonate with those used Wednesday afternoon by Martine Aubry who declared on X (ex-Twitter) that her city “is and will remain a land of hospitality and solidarity”. “We will continue to welcome and support everyone in our territory, whatever their origin,” added the PS mayor of Lille.
