French president Emmanuel Macron passes hardline immigration bill supported by Marine le Pen. She declares victory. Macron’s Health Minister resigns causing a political crisis.
France Political Crisis
Please note France Passes Controversial Immigration Bill Amid Deep Division in Macron’s Party.
The French government is facing a political crisis after the health minister Aurélien Rousseau offered his resignation in protest over a hardline immigration bill.
The bill was originally intended to show that Macron could take tough measures on migration while keeping France open to foreign workers who could help the economy in sectors struggling to fill jobs.
His interior minister Gérald Darmanin had argued that the bill “protected the French”, saying the government had to take tough measures on immigration in order to stem the rise of Le Pen’s anti-immigration far-right National Rally, which is now the single biggest opposition party in parliament and polling in first position ahead of next year’s European elections.
Sacha Houlié, a key figure on the left of Macron’s party, who had led the special committee on the law, voted against it.
Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration, far-right National Rally party, said her party would vote in favour of the bill, calling it an “ideological victory”. The far-right MP Edwige Diaz described the bill as “incontestably inspired by Marine Le Pen”.
Elsa Faucillon, the communist MP, said the government was using the same words and ideas as the far-right, and going further than Giorgia Meloni in Italy.
It is “the most regressive bill of the past 40 years for the rights and living conditions of foreigners, including those who have long been in France,” about 50 groups including the French Human Rights League said in a joint statement.
Cyrielle Chatelain, a Green MP, told parliament there was a feeling of “shame and betrayal” that Macron had instead brought in the ideas of the far-right with this bill.
Trumpism and the Kiss of Death
The BBC asks Has Marine Le Pen Given Emmanuel Macron the ‘Kiss of Death’?
French President Emmanuel Macron may have won a law on immigration, but has he lost his soul?
The accusation is being made at after a dramatic day in French politics which saw the presidential party given what one newspaper called the “kiss of death” by Marine Le Pen’s hard right.
Swallowing the harder-line version of the immigration law was bad enough for many in President Macron’s centrist Renaissance party and its allies.
What became unendurable was the coup pulled by Ms Le Pen as the vote in the National Assembly approached on Tuesday afternoon.
Out of the blue she announced that the toughened-up version of the law was now quite satisfactory thanks to the pressure of her 88 deputies. [note: very awkward BBC sentence reorganized, no words change].
More than that, she claimed it was an “ideological victory” because for the first time an immigration law would recognize the principle of “national preference” – long a cherished goal of her National Rally party.
Manon Aubry of France Unbowed called the law the “most xenophobic in French history” and the Greens’ Yannick Jadot said it marked the arrival of “Trumpism” in France.
What’s in the ‘Trumpism’ Bill?
- Delays foreigners access to state subsidies like housing aid or family allowances for several months or even years
- Toughens family reunification rules for immigrants
- Forces children born to foreigners in France to request French citizenship upon reaching adulthood, rather than having it granted automatically
- One-year, temporary residency permits under some conditions for skilled workers in fields experiencing labor shortages
Cracks Exposed
The above excerpts from the New York Times article Fractious Immigration Vote Exposes Cracks in Macron’s Alliance
Nearly a quarter of lower-house lawmakers in President Emmanuel Macron’s coalition abstained or voted against a proposed overhaul. Government leaders denied a revolt was underway.
Nearly one quarter of lawmakers in Mr. Macron’s own centrist coalition in the lower house of Parliament didn’t support the bill, either by voting against it or abstaining.
“These are things that have been fundamental to the far right for years, which we never would have dreamed of taking up,” Gilles Le Gendre, a lawmaker and former head of Mr. Macron’s party who voted against the bill, said in an interview. “But the right, inspired by the extreme right, added many elements that weren’t in the original law, and that presented major problems of principle.”
Sacha Houlié, another lawmaker in Mr. Macron’s party and the leader of Parliament’s powerful law committee, called parts of the final law “excessively mean” in an interview with RTL radio.
Marine Le Pen, the parliamentary leader of the far-right National Rally, gleefully declared the law “a great ideological victory for our movement,” and her fellow lawmakers voted unanimously for it.
Events in France are strikingly similar to events in the US.
For more on the EU, please see EU Integration Stopped and Is Now Headed in Reverse
Coming up shortly, I will compare and contrast what’s happening in France with the border mess in the US.
The French should not be allowed across the English Channel, by law, ever.
About time a little sanity was applied. It’s now far right to enforce your borders. We live in crazy times where morons rule.
“His interior minister Gérald Darmanin had argued that the bill “protected the French”, saying the government had to take tough measures on immigration in order to stem the rise of Le Pen’s anti-immigration far-right National Rally…”
So, politics was more important than protecting the French people from problems caused by immigration.
Virtue signaling and looking good is the mantra of Western politics. And god forbid some Soros funded rag calls you a racist.
The real point is unbridled immigration (irrespective of the country) is and will be always a foolish thing to do. So if the Government takes measures to not allow this, it should be construed as “it is waking up from silly Ethiopian notions”.
Why should one remain foolish for ever just because one has been foolish in the past?
Are these hardline rules for legal immigrants or illegal immigrants? There really shouldn’t be a problem with legal immigrants as government already controls the rate of flow there. I don’t understand why some folks get so worked up about accommodating folks who immigrate illegally. Fix your legal immigration process if you need to, but you don’t need to reward lawbreaking.
If Trump shot the first invading brigade the 5/8 dead immigrants would have prevented the rest.
First, “normal laws” on Immigration are ignored. Then, they make Politicians seem to be scratching back what already exists.
Masterful politics in action. We could not make this us.
France in recession. The cost of energy is rising after the Hootie event. The
Pro Palestinian protest got a response. France is responding to Islamic Jihad.
France isn’t alone. Macron followed Meloni and Sunak.
Pardon my French, but this really is about an unelected empire dictating a dysfunctional way of life to Europeans that they didn’t want, vote for or deserve.
And they want total control. The ‘veto’ option will be eliminated soon enough, because everyone needs to comply.
You see, the EU are like the Borg. Resistance is futile.
Every single European is a victim of unbridled mass-immigration and society and culture collapsing because of it. Owning your own house has become impossible, the currency is pretty much worthless and soon enough nothing will be ‘made in Europe’ because de-industrialization and net-zero policies will force out any common sense manufacturer.
Birthrates have completely collapsed, society has been Tiktokked and dumbed down and statenews is nothing less than utter propaganda, programming and indoctrination.
I truly despise hyperbolic, hysterical posts on the internet, but please allow me once more to say that in my 50 years, I’ve never seen this kind of unravelling chaos, this kind of depressing reality and this kind of desperation.
Something won’t break….it’s already broken and it’ll get even worse for the rest of this decade.
Because everyone knows, when psychopatic, authoritarian ‘leaders’ feel threatened, they lash out. Except this time, I really don’t think the people will just quietly bow down.
There are many loopholes in the law and it has to pass by the “Conseil Constitutionnel”, to see if it doesn’t contradict with the French Constitution which many measures probably do so many of its strictest clauses will be modified. After that the EU has to see if it contradicts its laws. You get the picture. Macron can claim that he backed a law restricting immigration which in the end it won’t and LePen can claim victory because the law contains measures her party backs even if those measures will be struck down.
Many center deputies saw that since the law had some merit, it was presented to them already wrapped up in its final form without any substantive debate. Nevertheless the Center and the Right voted yes while the far Left, which is now quasi-Antifa, voted against.
The MEDEF which is an organization that represents companies predictably said that France needs immigration because they need workers. Small business owners basically are on the same page because they need workers too at low wages like the companies. Those who do not benefit from immigration were given a law that will be modified into toothlessness.
In all not much changed and because in France the President and the Assembly are both elected for five years so the next general election where both are elected will be in 2026. I don’t expect any change.
This anti-immigration law is a sham. Anything that would be truly effective would be automatically canceled by the European authorities, to which France submits. The only real opponents are those who oppose the European Union, and Le Pen is not one of them, in a vain strategy of “normalization”, which leads her to completely forget her father’s old program.
In this context, it’s probably the ECHR. Soros deserves an A+ for designing a plan for destruction of European civilization. The cornerstone is the Soros university, that produces cadres for governmental institutions and NGOs. The Musk university as a counterweight would make sense, but the horses have already left the barn.
Paris enslaves the peasants of France just as Moscow enslaves the peasants of the Russian Federation. After tolerance has worn thin the pitch forks, torches, and Guillotines come into play.
Macron is responding to voters. That’s what he SHOULD be doing.
Keep ‘em coming, Abbot. Do Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson a favor: by-pass Chicago and go right to Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka, Northbrook and Highland Park. Nothing but the best accommodations for the migrants.
WHAT IS GOING ON? MAYBE TRUMP WAS RIGHT…
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Who could possibly think unbridled and unchecked immigration would be an issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
Yep, who coudda thunk?
Well, a few, No, perhaps a lot more than a few.