The immigration law is “the fruit of a compromise” and it is “a shield that we lacked”. This is the argument of Emmanuel Macron, guest on Wednesday on the show “C à vous” on France 5. “We must accept what has been done, we must remove many untruths, we must also calm people down” , pleaded the President of the Republic, criticizing “a bath boy maneuver” by the National Rally. “I fully assume that I say that our compatriots were waiting for this law and that if we want the RN not to come to power, we must deal with the problems that fuel it,” he declared.
He thus ensured a perilous after-sales service. Undoubtedly less among public opinion – poll after poll favors the toughening of migration policy – than among part of its troops close to the left. Which woke up on Wednesday with a “hangover”, as Renaissance MP Sacha Houlié said, one of the 62 Macronist MPs who did not vote for the text on Tuesday – or one in four. The President of the Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, herself said she remained “very perplexed” by this bill, right-wing by an agreement between the majority and Les Républicains (LR).
Before him, Emmanuel Macron’s supporters struggled to counter the refrain from the left according to which the presidential camp had compromised with the National Rally (RN). “Everyone is trying to impose their narrative,” noted government spokesperson Olivier Véran. The RN and the LR want to declare victory, the Nupes screams betrayal. “It’s a Christmas story that is being told to us,” the Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, growled in the Assembly, insisting that “in this text, the RN did not add a comma.”
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There are in the law “serious things and things that I don’t like, but which are not against our values”, insisted a little earlier Emmanuel Macron in the Council of Ministers, where Aurélien Rousseau’s place is remained empty. The resignation of the Minister of Health is the most spectacular damage of this episode, which will leave its mark on the majority. “Political life is made up of crises, agreements and disagreements,” Emmanuel Macron tried to put things into perspective on television.
This law, “it’s a balancing act, we’re not going to say the opposite,” admits a ministerial advisor. A sign of the ambient discomfort, the executive is working to apply ointment to its left wing. Emmanuel Macron transmitted the voted text to the Constitutional Council on Wednesday, while Élisabeth Borne admitted that certain measures would probably not pass this hurdle. The government therefore engaged in a political acrobatics consisting of letting the institution chaired by Laurent Fabius clean up the text of the most irritating measures: the immigration quotas set by Parliament, the tightening of access to social benefits for foreigners or even the loss of nationality for dual nationals convicted of intentional homicide against a person holding public authority. A method castigated by the socialist Olivier Faure, for whom the Macronists want to make the Constitutional Council “the broomstick of their conscience”.
“I would like to note that President Macron and the government did not take the votes of the National Front. But they took up his ideas,” François Hollande declared to Le Monde on Wednesday. While recalling that in 2016 he had renounced the forfeiture of nationality for binational terrorists in the face of criticism – including that of his then Minister of the Economy, Emmanuel Macron.
Seven years later, the head of state’s troops fear that a lasting malaise will take root in their ranks. “We have to say to ourselves: never again, let’s not indulge in this extremism to have an agreement at all costs,” insists Renaissance MP Céline Calvez, who abstained. One of his colleagues, the deputy Jean-Charles Larsonneur, announced that he was leaving the Horizons group, hostile to a text which “breaks dikes”.
If Emmanuel Macron was in a hurry to complete this episode before Christmas, it is because he wants to launch completely other projects at the start of 2024. At the Council of Ministers, he declared that he wanted to “get back to basics”. Starting with economic reforms which should make it possible to move towards “full employment”. But also societal texts, including the end of life, a subject on which he assumed on France 5 to “take the time”, while this time making an appointment in February. Before that, he intends to tackle “new major subjects, new challenges”, with “a new course” but “in continuity”. More than vague intentions.
Should we also see a possible change in its political system? Élisabeth Borne and Gérald Darmanin, more rivals than ever, have been weakened by the succession of hiccups, while the government now has an “interim” minister: Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, responsible for replacing Aurélien Rousseau at short notice. The real false rebellion of the few ministers of the left wing who threatened to resign is not resolved “Those who doubt and who have never really led a fight have no lessons to give”, scathed Emmanuel Macron in the Council of Ministers. The beginnings of an act of authority?
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“I don’t plan to stop there, I have three and a half years left,” Emmanuel Macron boldly assured in C à vous, while some are preparing what comes next. “It is absolutely necessary to put the majority, its ideas, and the government back on their feet,” centrist François Bayrou stressed on France 2. Then, during the interview with Emmanuel Macron on France 5, Édouard Philippe appeared on the set of the show “Quotidien” on TMC, as a television competitor. “It was planned for a long time, he warned the president,” people in the former prime minister’s entourage play down. The fact remains: from now on, when the president speaks, not everyone is silent.