The French Constitutional Court has declared some provisions of President Emmanuel Macron’s immigration reform illegal. The rejected provisions were added to the bill at the request of the right-wing opposition, whose support was needed to pass the bill.
In total, the court rejected 32 of the 86 provisions of the new immigration law. The court’s nine-member panel, made up of former politicians and public officials, found several provisions illegal, including the rejection of measures that limited immigrants’ right to social assistance, tightened conditions for family migration and called for to parliament to discuss the annual immigration quota.
At the same time, the reason why the provisions were rejected is not their unconstitutionality, but procedural reasons: according to the Court, the provisions added during negotiations with the right-wing opposition were not related to the original project of the government, writes the Financial Times.
Macron now has two weeks to decide whether to announce the law in a shortened form or send it back to parliament for debate. According to sources close to the government’s plans, the French president intends to announce the law without the provisions rejected by the court.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin expressed his satisfaction with the ruling, because the court did not reject any of the provisions of the original bill.
“No law has ever provided so many possibilities for the deportation of criminals and so many requirements for the integration of foreigners,” he wrote in a post on the social network
Marine Le Pen’s right-wing populist Rassemblement National party, in first place in European Parliament election polls, condemned the court’s decision.
The party’s number one, Jordan Bardella, called it a “coup d’état by the judges who ban the strong measures most supported by the French”. Bardella added that the law was stillborn and that a referendum on immigration should be held in France.
The immigration law was supposed to be a major reform of Macron’s second term, but the fact that his party lost its majority in the 2022 parliamentary elections forced him to compromise with the right-wing opposition. When the bill was passed in amended form in December with the support of Marina Le Pen’s party, she called it an ideological victory.
At the same time, nearly a quarter of the 251 members of Macron’s lower house of parliament did not vote in favor of the bill, and the government’s health minister resigned in protest at cooperation with right-wing populists.
“This is a rejection of parliamentary work and shows how difficult it is [valitseda] without a majority,” commented Anne-Charlene Bezzina, professor of law at the University of Rouen.
The left-wing opposition and human rights activists welcomed the verdict. Amnesty International called it a victory for immigrants, and Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure said the government’s reputation would be left with an indelible stain after compromising with right-wing populists.
2024-01-26 05:30:00
the-french-constitutional-court-has-declared-part-of-the-immigration-reform-illegal-foreign-country