2023-11-08 09:22:00
The president of the LR group, Bruno Retailleau (right), and the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin (back), during the examination of the “immigration” bill, in the Senate, November 6, 2023. JULIEN MUGUET FOR “THE WORLD”
The examination of the bill on immigration, which began on Monday November 6, is a slippery slope for the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who must maintain the support of the right without alienating that of his relative majority to the National Assembly to pass its law.
Thus, on the second day of the senatorial debates, Tuesday November 7, on this thirtieth immigration and integration reform in 40 years, the tenant of Place Beauvau was unable to obstruct one of the key demands made by the senatorial majority of the right and the center: the abolition of state medical aid (AME), health coverage reserved for undocumented immigrants, in favor of the creation of emergency medical aid (AMU). This measure was adopted by 200 votes to 136, directly opposing the right and the left of the Senate.
Already reformed in 2019, the AME makes it possible to cover the medical and hospital costs of illegal foreigners present in France for at least three months. In 2022, this public health system affected just over 400,000 beneficiaries for a total cost of 1.2 billion euros, or 0.5% of total Health Insurance expenditure.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers “Immigration” law: the tightening of state medical aid by the right is causing trouble among the majority
The senatorial right, which sees in the AME “a migratory call of air”, replaced it with an AMU, limited to the care “serious illnesses and acute pain”as well as pregnancy follow-up care, vaccinations and preventive medicine examinations.
“The Article of Shame”
“Mixing the debates on the AME and immigration control is nonsense”, argued the minister responsible for territorial organization and health professions, Agnès Firmin le Bodo, present on the Senate benches on this occasion. In the hemicycle of the Luxembourg Palace, she became the spokesperson for “government very attached to maintaining the AME. »
However, in order not to offend the Les Républicains (LR) senators, who put a certain number of their markers in the balance in exchange for support for the government’s text, Ms. Firmin le Bodo finally issued a “advice of wisdom” (neither favorable nor unfavorable) on the suppression of the AME, refusing to formally oppose the proposal of the right, denounced by the left and by the Macronist group in the Senate as “the article of shame” or resuming “the whims of the right and the extreme right”.
“This advice of wisdom is absolutely incomprehensible and you should have had a very clear, very firm position, said the president of the environmental group in the Senate, Guillaume Gontard. The message that you send to our Republic, to our fellow citizens is terrible. You let all this talk about this fantasy of the migratory pull of air pass by. This vote is not trivial, you have a real responsibility. And you let yourself be carried away by this ultra-rightist drift of the Republicans. »
You have 65% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
#Darmanins #concessions