The bill, which provides both measures to facilitate the expulsion of foreign offenders and an integration component, will be examined from March 28 in the Senate, dominated by the right-wing opposition.
The senators “muscled” Wednesday in committee the immigration bill, by adopting a series of amendments, such as the tightening of the conditions of access to family reunification, thus giving a turn of the screw to the text, next hot file of the government.
The bill, which provides both measures to facilitate the expulsion of foreign offenders and an integration component, in particular through a controversial residence permit in “short-term jobs”, will be examined from March 28 in the Senate, dominated by the right-wing opposition. The vote is scheduled for April 4, before a move to the National Assembly around the summer.
Restricted eligibility criteria for family reunification
“The law commission deplored the lack of ambition of the government text and its many blind spots. above all, to fill the gaps in the bill”, summarized in a press release the Senate commission.
“We have tried to erase a certain number of attractiveness factors and to ask for more integration capacity”, indicated Muriel Jourda (LR), one of the two rapporteurs.
The latter have tightened the eligibility criteria for family reunification: language level, length of stay, conditions of resources… So many points on which the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had already said he was in favor before the senators at the end of FEBRUARY.
Refusal of LRs to vote for a text “where there would be calls for air”
The senators also tightened the conditions for benefiting from the “sick foreigner” residence permit. The text adopted in committee also provides for allowing Parliament to determine each year “targets” – or quotas – for immigration.
The senators again gave the green light to an amendment to transform state medical aid (AME), reserved for undocumented migrants, into emergency medical aid exclusively.
The boss of senators LR Bruno Retailleau had indicated on Sunday that his group would not vote for a text “where there would be calls for air”, mentioning article 3, which plans to create a residence permit “jobs in tension” and Article 4, allowing some asylum seekers to work “without delay”.
There are on these two articles “two points of view which are discussed” between the two rapporteurs, declared the president of the commission of the Laws François-Noël Buffet (LR). “We wanted the debate to take place in session,” he added.
Anger of associations hostile to the text
“The Law Commission has just considerably toughened up the bill. Everything goes: the AME, toughening of access to nationality, (…) aggravated expulsions including of protected persons”, lamented on Twitter the collective “United against disposable immigration”, which brings together associations hostile to the text.
“The regressive festival begins”, for his part commented Pierre Henry, president of France fraternities, who had participated in the consultations on the text. “The cost of LR rallying to the retirement law?”
“Amendments from certain LRs who flirt with the ideology of the RN … it promises for the debate in session”, also tweeted the president of the majority communist CRCE group, Eliane Assassi.
