The immigration bill, whose examination in the Senate with a right-wing majority has been postponed, is an "indispensable" text which cannot be "sliced up", said Senate President Gérard Larcher (LR) on LCI on Thursday. .
The conference of presidents of the Senate (which brings together in particular all the presidents of the political groups) on Wednesday evening recorded the withdrawal from the agenda of this controversial text, carried by the Ministers of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and Labor Olivier Dussopt.
Adopted last week in committee - with several tougher provisions - it was to be examined at first reading in the hemicycle from next Tuesday.
The Conference of Presidents "was very clear", said Gérard Larcher: it "agrees" for the text to be removed from the agenda, but its examination "can only be postponed".
In a letter to Mr. Larcher on Wednesday, of which AFP had a copy, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne explains this withdrawal in order "to be able to build with the two assemblies, the best method in order to move forward as quickly as possible on these major questions, without call into question the strong ambitions of this text both in terms of immigration control and in the field of integration".
"There is no question for the Conference of Presidents of a text that is sliced up as was mentioned by the President of the Republic", continued Gérard Larcher. The head of state announced on Wednesday that the bill, which satisfies neither the right nor the left, would be cut into "several texts".
But for the President of the Senate, "a migration policy is a whole".
"It is a text, like pensions, essential, which must be debated on the merits and which must provide answers", he underlined.
"Going to slalom is undoubtedly an interesting exercise for skiers, but I think that in politics you need consistency, courage," he said.
Mr. Larcher also recalled that he himself had asked for the postponement of the examination of the text. "I take my responsibilities, it was I who spoke on Sunday evening with the President of the Republic of the need for such an important text (to be) examined in peaceful conditions," he said.
Criticizing a "rather baroque method", the socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj recalled that "we were presented with this reform as being absolutely essential, when it was only Macron who was seeking to run on the lands of the far right". "If you sausage, you take a little bit here, a little bit there, that's not a policy," he said on franceinfo.
"Making a law for a law and a law that will ultimately increase immigration issues, it is better to do nothing," said MP RN Thomas Ménagé on RMC.
03/23/2023 14:00:16 - Paris (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
