After the attack in Arras (Pas-de-Calais), the executive wants to strengthen its position on immigration. A few weeks before the debates in the Senate, scheduled for November 6, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, intends to demonstrate that his bill – on which he has been working for more than a year – would be an effective remedy to the Islamist threat. This is clearly not the opinion of the French, since our latest Odoxa-Backbone Le Figaro survey reveals that 69% of them do not believe in this text. Doubt is spreading even in the presidential camp, where almost half of supporters (45%) question the PJL’s ability to eradicate the terrorist problem. There are even fewer and fewer of them (41%) who consider it useful.
Especially since the government is already seriously weakened on the migration issue. More than three quarters of the country (78%) have a poor opinion of the executive’s policy in this area, an increase of 8 points over one year. However, the French take a positive view of two of the new measures recently proposed by Gérald Darmanin. Three quarters of respondents (75%) thus approve the authorization to expel a convicted foreigner, even if he arrived in France before the age of 13, so that the path of the Arras attacker cannot be not reproduce in the future.
Almost as many French people (73%) favor the withdrawal of a foreigner’s residence permit for adhering to jihadist ideology, including the voters of La France insoumise (60%). On the other hand, only half of those surveyed (50%) consider the extension from 3 to 18 months the duration of placement in administrative detention centers for S files and delinquents who must be deported to be “effective”.
Despite these good points awarded by public opinion, Gérald Darmanin fails to reassure: two thirds of respondents (67%) do not “trust” him to fight against terrorism. A failure for the Minister of the Interior, from the right, who has made a series of strong moves on the subject since his entry into government. In front of him, his colleague from National Education, Gabriel Attal (ex-PS), does barely better with 34%. As for the top of the executive, neither Emmanuel Macron (26%) nor Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne (25%) appear as protective figures to confront the Islamist peril. Finally, the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, does even worse, since he only attracts the favor of 21% of French people.
No party succeeds in establishing itself as a bulwark against Islamism. Only the right and the nationalists seem to be timidly doing well. The French are 36% to place their confidence in the National Rally (RN), and 29% in the Republicans. For several months, the two parties have been raising their voices to demand a referendum on immigration.
