This is the last chance meeting. This Monday, at 5 p.m., the right and the Macron camp will try to find a compromise on the immigration bill. Seven senators and seven deputies meeting behind closed doors, in a small room of the National Assembly: these meetings, called joint committees (CMP), are nothing new. They are held when two different versions of a bill have been voted on in the Assembly and the Senate, such as during debates on pensions. But this time, the exercise promises to be more perilous. Firstly because the controversial text was rejected even before the start of discussions between deputies in the Chamber last Monday. An express retort due to the opposition of the left, the Republicans (LR) and the National Rally (RN) coalition.
Then, because, in the event of agreement on Monday on a toughened text, a final adoption is not guaranteed on Tuesday in the National Assembly. As Emmanuel Macron assured that he would not resort to the ax of 49.3, several crucial votes could be missing in the ranks of LR and the left wing of its majority. The President of the Republic is playing big. On Friday, he called for an “intelligent compromise”, “in the service of the general interest and the country”. And, he warned, he will draw “consequences” from the final result. In the event of failure, strategists from all camps are preparing to wage a severe battle of interpretation, which will consist of blaming the other.
In this scenario, Emmanuel Macron indicated that he would withdraw this bill, which has become a symbol of the credibility of his Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, and his Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. A setback would lead him to have to explain to the French, during his televised wishes on December 31, why a project launched in the summer of 2022 could not be completed a year and a half later.
He who likes to boast of the number of texts adopted without an absolute majority – even if it is through Article 49.3 for pensions and budgets – should then note the flaws in his method in Parliament. And respond to a complaint that is rising among his troops: the impossibility of continuing like this for three years. How then can we get out of the stalemate? “The change of government to make a new start, of course it’s a weapon,” admitted his centrist ally, François Bayrou, on Sunday in “Le Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-M6-Paris Première”. “In the event of a disaster, does the president pull the rug out, with a change of prime minister and a reconfiguration of the majority?”, echoes a senior member of the Renaissance party, in favor of this approach.
While excluding a dissolution of the National Assembly, requested by the RN but ruled out on Tuesday by Emmanuel Macron: The head of state will not do it on immigration. If there is a dissolution now, it will be an absolute or relative majority for the RN…” Before seeing his troops defeated last Monday in the Hemicycle, the tenant of the Élysée announced a nebulous “rendezvous with the nation” for January. He then hoped to overcome the final parliamentary stage of the immigration bill.
Instead he finds himself with his feet in the clay. His projects – improvement of working conditions, housing law, simplification of standards in businesses, end of life – remain suspended from the decisions he will make, once the fate of his immigration law is sealed. “Certainly, this is a turning point in the five-year term,” socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj admitted on Sunday on Radio J.
Determined to break the deadlock and remain in Matignon, Élisabeth Borne engaged in intense negotiations. Looking for concessions from everyone. Its text was based both on a component of “firmness” (with the facilitation of expulsions) and a component of “humanity” (with the regularization of undocumented workers in professions “in tension”). She finds herself caught between her majority, which wants to relax the first, and the right, which wants to limit the second. Its restricted version “offers the necessary guarantees to stifle the call for air previously created”, indicated Éric Ciotti in Le Journal du Dimanche, assuring that the “unity” of his troops would be there. “There cannot be an agreement if our text is distorted,” Bruno Retailleau reaffirmed Friday in Le Figaro.
At the center of the Prime Minister’s attention, the two tenors of the right-wing party were again received on Sunday evening in Matignon, with LR deputies Olivier Marleix and Annie Genevard. This meeting “must be the recording chamber of an agreement”, we insisted on Sunday in the ranks of the senatorial right. As for the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, guest of BFMTV, she said she was “confident” in a compromise. “Is it better to have a text or no text? I think it’s better to have a text,” added Gérald Darmanin.
But the composition of the deputies-senators commission, convened on Monday, reveals the difficulty of the problem. Of the fourteen parliamentarians, five come from the right and the same number from the presidential coalition. For their discussions to be successful, Bruno Retailleau and Sacha Houlié, a figure of the Macronist left wing, will have to be able to come to an agreement. Everyone knows that part of the rest of Macron’s five-year term depends on them.
