Gérald Darmanin is a skilled man, experienced in the art of negotiation. At 40, the former mayor of Tourcoing could give lessons to the most experienced senators. We’re not nicknamed “Darmalin” for nothing. Clever, perhaps too much. The Minister of the Interior is struggling to build a majority on his immigration bill, presented this Wednesday, February 1 in the Council of Ministers. And sows doubt about the survival of the text.
His copy was intended as a model of Macronist compromise. For the right, a series of measures to facilitate the expulsion of foreign offenders. For the left, the creation of a residence permit “jobs in tension”, intended to regularize illegal immigrants exercising a job that does not find takers. With the Minister of Labor and ex-socialist Olivier Dussopt as ambassador.
Playing the tightrope walkers, you end up falling. Tensions crystallize around this last device. It monopolizes the debates and could seal the future of the text, so important for the career of Gérald Darmanin. The right, the only potential partner, is heartbroken at the mere mention of it. In migration matters more than elsewhere, certain symbols crush everything. “I fear that this article obscures all the rest of the bill”, mocks Senator LR du Rhône François-Noël Buffet, author of a report on immigration which the government claims to draw inspiration from.
However, this measure is hardly revolutionary. The residence permit will be issued for a period of one year to foreigners who have resided for at least three years in France and who have been working in a job under pressure for at least eight months over the last two years. This is already too much for the right, which castigates a useless and dangerous project. Useless, because a circular of 2012 already makes it possible to integrate illegal immigrants into the job market. Dangerous, because it would be a masked massive regularization operation. “As soon as a signal of this type is sent, it calls for air”, warns the boss of the deputies Olivier Marleix. Such a measure “reflects the defeatism of the State which, for lack of being able to control immigration, puts up with it”, lambasted the president of LR Eric Ciotti in a press release on Friday.
These loud cries are very political. The right wishes to recall its status as an opponent of Emmanuel Macron during the examination of the text. After having dubbed the pension reform, Eric Ciotti has little desire to make a second gift to the executive. A new partnership would rank LR de facto as an ally of the government. This residence permit is a godsend for the right. “It simplifies the problem for us, admits the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes Michèle Tabarot. Between this and the Ocean Viking affair, this shows our disagreements with the government on the subject of migration.” “We are fortunately covered by this title”, abounds an LR leader. Opportunism and convictions are false twins here.
The executive adapts to this reluctance. Gérald Darmanin invites in The Parisian the right to amend the text during the parliamentary discussion and explicitly mentions the establishment of quotas “to limit regularizations”. The minister is banking on the right-wing senatorial majority to toughen the text and push the LR deputies to compromise. Beware of excessive tactics. These concessions might not be enough, but hurt the left wing of the majority. Undress Paul, without dressing Jacques.” A member of the government fears that the final version of the text focuses on the regal, not the best bulwark according to him against Marine Le Pen.
Quietly, a communication war is preparing between the executive and the right. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne says she is privately very attentive to the fact that this residence permit is not assimilated to a massive regularization operation, prohibitive for public opinion. Until the last minute she wondered about the advisability of creating it. The majority does not speak of “regularization” but of “legalization” and emphasizes that the title does not give right to family reunification. “These are people who are already in France and not a workforce that we are going to look for”, insists the Renaissance deputy from Val-de-Marne Mathieu Lefevre.
Macronie – which, to date, does not intend to give up this part of the text – is determined to take the right to its own trap. LR erects this residence permit as a symbol? Her too. She depicts it as an ode to the value of work and recalls that it responds to a request from part of the employers, a traditional right-wing electorate. What will shopkeepers or farm managers think, often in search of employees?
The chairman of the Economic Affairs Commission Guillaume Kasbarian would like his authority to take up the bill for an opinion. A way to shift the debate from identity to economic terrain. A minister from the left judges that the right is making a political mistake by opposing the bill. “The French are pragmatic. Immigrants who come to work are not a problem for them. The subject is not newcomers, but those who have been there for two or three generations and who are not integrated. If we closed the borders tomorrow, Marine Le Pen would score the same.”
This work of persuasion does not prevent intimidation. Macronists are convinced that a few elected LR and RN “harass” the Paris prefecture to regularize their personal employees … undocumented. And would consider leaking the information at the appropriate time. A Renaissance executive had fun counting the number of requests of this type from a colleague LR, very hostile to the bill.
The ball is in LR’s court today. All the conditions are met for him to oppose the text, despite the maneuvers of Gérald Darmanin. The Beauvau tenant is however confident in private about his ability to find a majority. Not all of Macronie shares his optimism. Some within it are already wondering about the interest of using the famous 49.3. But the possible use of this article on a text devoted to immigration already divides the camp of the president.
