Vote on the motion to reject: 1978, 1998, 2008… before the Immigration law, these other texts which suffered the same fate

2023-12-12 19:38:24

A real snub for the Minister of the Interior. This Monday evening, the National Assembly voted (270 votes for, 265 votes against) a motion for prior rejection against the Immigration law text carried by Gérald Darmanin. The latter presented his resignation on Monday evening, refused by Emmanuel Macron. He himself recognized a “political failure” and personal to the TF1 news.

Above all, the qualification of “motion of prior rejection” only exists since “a resolution of May 27, 2009”, as recalls the Constitutional Council. Until then there were three types of “procedural motion”: the objection of inadmissibility, the preliminary question and the motion to refer it to committee. The objections of inadmissibility and the preliminary question merged with the May 2009 resolution to become “the motion to dismiss”. The motion to refer it to committee was deleted during a review of the regulations of the National Assembly in 2019.

Gérald Darmanin is not the first to experience such a debacle under the Fifth Republic. Le Parisien looks back on three comparable precedents.

1978: the first procedural motion

This could be the very first procedural motion voted on at the Palais-Bourbon. “On November 30, 1978, the deputies adopted an objection of inadmissibility defended by the Gaullist Jean Foyer, during the examination of a text adapting a European directive on VAT”, recalls a article from Le Monde published in October 1998. Jean Foyer was then a deputy for the Rally for the Republic (RPR), a party chaired by Jacques Chirac. Prime Minister between 1974 and 1976, the latter was replaced by Raymond Barre, stationed in Matignon on November 30, 1978. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was then president.

Jean Foyer is therefore a member of a party “supposed to support the government”, argues Jean-Philippe Derosier, constitutionalist and professor of public law at the University of Lille. “At the time, there was opposition between former Prime Minister Jacques Chirac supported by Jean Foyer and Giscard,” he continues. In other words, the objection of inadmissibility came from within the presidential majority itself. This is made up of RPR deputies – the majority in the presidential majority – and deputies from the Union for French Democracy (UDF) of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

This motion “collected the votes of the RPR and the left”, recalls Jean-Philippe Derosier. “The effect was the same: the text was not debated in the National Assembly,” he adds. The text will finally be adopted subsequently via a budgetary vote.

1998: the PACS law

It will then be necessary to wait twenty years for a procedural motion to be voted on again. This came on October 9, 1998 when the deputies were called to examine the bill from Jean-Pierre Michel, member of the party created by Jean-Pierre Chevènement “Citizens’ Movement”, on the PACS law (Civil Solidarity Pact). ). Everything takes place in the middle of the third cohabitation: Jacques Chirac is President of the Republic when the socialist Lionel Jospin is Prime Minister.

VIDEO. Immigration law: the government against a dissolution of the National Assembly, according to Véran

Through this text, the government intends to grant rights to unmarried couples, regardless of their sex. The subject divides the hemicycle and the right-wing opposition mobilizes its troops more widely than the majority made up of socialists, ecologists and communists. The motion of inadmissibility filed by the centrist Jean-François Mattei was finally adopted. According to an article des Échos published on October 12, 1998the vote was decided by around ten votes.

2008: rejection of the GMO bill

This time, the procedural motion comes in second reading – unlike 1978, 1998 and 2023 -, at the initiative of the communist André Chassaigne in May 2008. It concerns a very controversial text relating to genetically modified organisms (GMO). At that time, Nicolas Sarkozy was president and François Fillon Prime Minister: the procedural motion was therefore tabled by the opposition.

The vote is decided by one vote (136 for and 135 against). It allows the adoption of a “preliminary question” which aims to “decide that there is no need to deliberate” on the text, as noted France 24 at the time. As we explained following the vote, the result against the government can be explained as much by a “lack of attendance of UMP deputies” as by “many UMP deputies from rural constituencies” who would have been convinced not to support the text by producers of AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée) products “who fear being contaminated”.

A joint committee (CMP) adopted the text rejected by the National Assembly the next day. It will be definitively approved by the National Assembly on May 20, 2008.