2023-12-13 19:46:41
At least things are simple. The immigration bill will find a majority or be buried. Emmanuel Macron ruled out this Tuesday evening during a dinner at the Elysée any recourse to article 49.3 of the Constitution to have the text adopted, the day after the vote on the rejection motion in the National Assembly. Here, there is no fiery ode to parliamentary democracy. This decision is a strategic imperative. From a weapon intended to twist the arm of oppositions, article 49.3 risked turning into an instrument for disciplining the majority. Grafting an internal psychodrama to a political crisis is not necessary.
The 49.3 was originally neither desired nor excluded. “This allows us to move forward, but it’s always better to be able to convince,” assured Beauvau in November. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had the ambition to win around twenty LR deputies to form a majority in the National Assembly. Way to exorcise the memory of the retreats, which almost swept away the government in the spring. Desire, above all, to record a personal political victory. The Assembly on Monday dampened the dreams of the ex-mayor of Tourcoing.
READ ALSO >> “He buys in private and insults in public”: the two faces of Darmanin facing the right
Towards a muscular text in CMP?
The text is still moving. It will be examined on Monday December 18 by a joint committee. Seven deputies and seven senators will be responsible for finding a compromise around the bill. But the situation has changed. These 14 parliamentarians will have as their sole working basis the muscular copy adopted in the Senate in November. Exit the “soft” version voted on in the Assembly’s law committee, shot down by the rejection motion. The senatorial copy bristles the left wing of Renaissance and delights LR.
On the menu: abolition of State medical aid (AME), reinstatement of the offense of illegal stay or tightening of the regularization system for foreigners exercising a profession in shortage. The right, a majority in the Senate, reigns in CMP, where seats are allocated in proportion to the importance of the groups in each assembly. “We put the Senate in a position of strength to clean up the text,” rejoiced Tuesday on LCI the boss of LR deputies Olivier Marleix. The situation is simple: if an agreement is reached in CMP, the compromise text will be tough.
READ ALSO >> Immigration law rejected: between Macronie and the opposition, six days of smoke and betrayals
“It would be expensive”
And the 49.3 in all this? We’re coming there. In the event of agreement, the project resulting from the CMP will be submitted to the vote of the National Assembly, without the possibility for the deputies to amend it. It’s all or nothing. Enough to upset everyone’s positions: part of the Macronie is reluctant to vote for a harsh text that it considers distorted when LR elected officials, satisfied, could be tempted to vote in its favor.
A recourse to 49.3 would therefore not aim to extinguish opposition but to muzzle the reluctant voices of the majority. “It would be a 49.3 discipline which would go very, very badly. It would be expensive,” notes a Horizons executive. “We would go from a 49.3 to pass the original text to a 49.3 to hold the majority. Because that would not pass with us,” summarizes the deputy of the left wing of Renaissance Caroline Janvier. The Minister of Relations with Parliament Franck Riester recently confided to an LR MP that the executive could not afford such an act of internal authority. François Hollande did not hesitate to draw it out to tame his rebels. We know the rest.
“Not a text at all costs”
Point of passage in force, therefore. This choice has several consequences. In the event of 49.3, the government has the opportunity to reshape the text to its liking and insert the measures it wishes. He is free, for example, to return to the initial version of the project and its two legs of firmness/integration through work. It will not happen. A right-wing MP rejoices: “It’s a good signal for the right of the majority and LR, because there is therefore the ambition to pass a text which will not be re-unraveled by a 49.3 between Houlié ( president of the Law Commission and ex-socialist, Editor’s note) and Borne. But this potentially makes the CMP unvotable.”
READ ALSO >> Emmanuel Macron: the January meeting or the obsession with “reset”
In the event of a favorable vote, the government could demand the adoption of a text in its finest democratic form. Even if it means fueling tensions between the different components of the majority. “If it is voted on, it marks a break with part of the left of the majority and opens the way to the reshuffle,” anticipates a deputy cited above.
Otherwise, France would give up in the short term on adopting a law on immigration. Several deputies from the left wing would not necessarily view it negatively, anxious not to let the right hold the pen. “We should not want a text at all costs at the risk of sacrificing our DNA,” judges Caroline Janvier. “Perhaps we will have to bury the text as it is and come back differently,” adds another. With the risk that no majority emerges on an abrasive theme, while Marine Le Pen heads towards 2027 with the wind at her back. In September, a minister delivered this dark prophecy, in the midst of the Lampedusa crisis: “Imagine that there is no Immigration law. If the parties of the republican arc are incapable of voting for one, it is a boulevard for those who suggest that it is thanks to a law that everything will change.” Follow his gaze…
.
#renounce #Macrons #choice #LExpress