It’s almost one in the morning when the smoke finally comes out. She is not white, that said: at the end of a joint committee (CMP) lasting several hours, the parliamentarians were unable to reach an agreement. In the absence of a quick agreement, they decided to give themselves a short night’s sleep to better meet up on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.
It must be said that the discussions got off to a bad start: they opened with a hiccup. A problem that the president of the Republicans (LR), Éric Ciotti, sought to resolve shortly before 5 p.m., speaking on the phone from the first floor of the Palais Bourbon. At that time, the crucial CMP – composed of seven deputies and seven senators – will soon meet, but a disagreement persists with Élisabeth Borne. At the risk of calling into question a fragile compromise on the immigration bill, this text has become one of the most symbolic of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term.
Negotiations cannot begin until this blockage is lifted. So, barely opening at 5 p.m., the meeting was immediately suspended at the request of the LR. General amazement in this room of the law commission, located just opposite the Hôtel de Lassay. The tenors of the right isolate themselves in a cramped room to clarify the matter: what about Personalized Housing Assistance (APL) for foreigners, which the Republicans want to make conditional on five years of presence in the territory? This measure has disappeared from the text.
The Macron camp opposes it. The standoff continues. The boss of LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, calls the Prime Minister to ask her for accountability. “This is not in accordance with the Senate text and the commitments that were given to us,” he wrote a little later on social networks.
During the four hours of suspension of the session, each camp blamed the other for the stalemate. The long-awaited meeting room is sometimes deserted, sometimes almost full. The shutters were closed, so as not to allow curious journalists to disturb a session which has still not resumed. The LR and their centrist allies are still gathered in their small room.
The entertainment is elsewhere: in the Salle des Quatre Colonnes, the deputies come to distribute their “offs”, in a continual ballet. Everyone has their own little word, their little prediction. Everyone thinks they know the elements that are currently “blocking” the agreement. Meanwhile, in the presidential camp, there is concern. “It doesn’t smell good,” confides Florent Boudié, Renaissance rapporteur of the bill, before going to Matignon for an urgently called meeting around Élisabeth Borne.
Macronists and Republicans accuse each other of not respecting the pre-agreement concluded before the deputies-senators commission. “It’s the Wish version of House of Cards… but less good,” says a parliamentary collaborator. Meanwhile, the left is taking advantage of the confusion to demand the postponement of the deputy-senator negotiations: “We are asking to stop this charade,” says the boss of the socialist senators, Patrick Kanner. “The situation is improbable, never experienced. It is a scandal.” The Lepénist Yoann Gillet denounces for his part a “political turmoil”.
As the hours pass, the situation seems to get worse. However, everything seemed settled at the start of the discussions. Anxious to find an agreement with the right – which has five seats in this body, as many as the presidential camp -, Élisabeth Borne has increased meetings in recent days with the tenors of her majority and the Republicans. To the point of making several concessions to the right, including the promise of a reform of State Medical Aid (AME) for the start of next year, confirmed in black and white in a letter to President LR of the Senate Gérard Larcher . A commitment that concluded a week of talks with a right emboldened by the rejection of the text on immigration in the Assembly Chamber last week.
What if a misunderstanding between the government and Les Républicains was at the origin of the deterioration of exchanges on Monday evening? Several versions of the draft agreement circulated between Matignon and the right during the day. Officials on both sides eventually realized that editorial confusion had caused trouble. To make matters worse, a press article published at the end of the evening, announcing a hypothetical phone call from Emmanuel Macron to Bruno Retailleau, created astonishment on the right and left. Very quickly, lawsuits arose in violation of the separation of powers, despite the denials provided by those close to the two men.
Despite the tensions, discussions resumed. Article by article, point by point. Restrictive version of the regularization of undocumented workers in professions in tension, limitation of family reunification, loss of nationality for dual nationals perpetrators of crimes against the police… “We are moving forward”, indicates a participant around 23 hours, while the question of paying APL to foreigners is postponed until later in the night to allow exchanges to continue. “These are not snakes, but boas that the majority is swallowing,” says Edwige Diaz, in reference to the numerous concessions made by the Macronists to the RN.
Uncomfortable with the turn of the evening, the Macronist left wing fears a bill that is too harsh. Some even come to open up about it to journalists in the corridors of the Palais Bourbon. “If we accept this, it will be without me,” protests a figure from the left wing in the Court of Honor of the Assembly.
Ministers and majority leaders fear that the presidential camp will fracture. Resistant to any dissolution or 49.3 on the text, the head of state for his part keeps his distance from the negotiations. Instead, the President of the Republic preferred to receive the Bleues, world handball champions, at the Élysée. An evening shorter than that of parliamentarians. Midnight approaches: a new suspension of the session occurs. She will be the last of the evening. Negotiations between the Republicans and the Macronist camp are not over. Will they succeed? The verdict will therefore not take place until tomorrow, from 10:30 a.m.
