French President Emmanuel Macron is under renewed fire after urging his minority government to vote for a strengthened immigration bill that was endorsed by the far right. The late Tuesday vote, which divided Macron's coalition MPs and prompted his health minister to resign a day later, was heralded by far-right leader Marine Le Pen as an “ideological victory” upon its passage.
In a speech following his April 2022 re-election, Emmanuel Macron was well aware he owed his victory to left-leaning voters who considered him the lesser of two evils as he faced off a challenge from Marine Le Pen. "I know that many of our compatriots voted for me not to support the ideas I represent but to block those of the far right," he acknowledged.
Less than two years later, Macron is facing criticism that he betrayed those same constituents by aligning with the far right after his minority government helped pass an immigration law that was heavily influenced by the right-wing Les Républicains party and supported by the far-right National Rally.
Soon after it was passed, the law was heralded by far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen who proclaimed an "ideological victory".
Macron and members of his government rejected that assessment in a round of interviews on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne told France Inter she felt a "sense of duty fulfilled" after the adoption of the immigration law. Faced with strong criticism from the left, NGOs and even within her own government, Borne insisted that the law "respects our values".
‘Préférence Nationale’
The immigration law includes several measures inspired by the National Rally's policy platform. For example, access to certain social benefits will be conditional on a longer period of legal residence in France.
What’s more, sanctions against companies employing undocumented workers will be stepped up.
Measures like these and others concern critics who say the Macron government has accepted policies affiliated with an ideology of “préférence nationale” – policies that legitimise discrimination against foreign nationals in favour of French citizens concerning access to employment, housing and social protections.
"This law does not encompass the entirety or even the majority of Marine Le Pen's presidential programme, but some of her policies – especially regarding national preference – certainly made the cut even if the law does not go as far as the National Rally wants," said Jean-Yves Camus, a specialist on the far right and the director of the Observatoire des Radicalités Politiques.
"It's an exaggeration to talk about an extreme-right text – I would call it instead a ‘hard-right’ text – but we are still opening the door to national preference. We are not fully there, but the door is ajar," says Caroline Janvier, an MP from Macron’s Renaissance party who voted against the immigration law on Tuesday.
‘Kiss of death’
It is precisely the addition of national preference policies that tipped the vote on Tuesday night.
Until the mid-afternoon, representatives from the National Rally repeatedly stated they would not endorse the bill, deeming it impossible to approve a text that grants undocumented workers legal status. But seeing the possibility of a strategic victory on the issue of national preference, Le Pen reversed course.
"One can rejoice in an ideological victory … national preference is now inscribed in law, meaning the French will have an advantage over foreigners in accessing certain social benefits," Le Pen said on Tuesday.
Janvier described Le Pen’s endorsement as the “kiss of death" – a "political move" to make Macron’s government look complicit with the far right in the eyes of left-leaning constituents.
National Rally members were not the only ones pleased by Tuesday’s vote. "There was a kind of jubilation among MPs from Les Républicains over having chipped away at a taboo: that of equality between French and foreigners," said Camus. "For them, this means that the cultural hegemony of the left has begun to crumble. Beyond the immigration issue, a moral taboo has been broken."
But Camus said the party’s hopes of luring away far-right supporters are likely in vain. "Les Républicains continue to pursue a strategy of undermining the National Rally by hijacking their policy platform. The only problem is that this strategy doesn’t work. The National Rally continues to rise in the polls," he said.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen’s father and the founder of National Rally predecessor the National Front, may have said it best: "Voters always prefer the original to the copy."
Victory by ‘background noise’
Macron could have prevented this shift by choosing, in the face of Les Républicains demands, to withdraw the bill and start from scratch. But he deemed it preferable to go through with the vote, even if it meant dividing his coalition.
In total, 27 MPs in the government’s coalition voted against the bill that passed while 32 abstained. Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau resigned from his role in protest the following day.
Borne insisted on France Inter on Wednesday that "there is no crisis in the coalition" while government spokesperson Olivier Véran said that same day there was "no ministerial rebellion”.
Macron defended his decision in an interview with the “C à Vous” TV programme on Wednesday evening. "It is a shield that we needed," he said, adding that the law "will allow us to fight against what nourishes the National Rally party" – namely immigration fears.
Read moreFiercely contested immigration law is a 'shield that we needed', Macron says
Whatever the case, the lines are no longer the same as 20 years ago, Camus said. "With this law, we have accepted the far-right vision of immigration as a danger."
He said the National Rally’s success is due to persistent “background noise”: "This law would not have been approved without half a century of emphasis on national preference and the idea that immigration is a burden, that we pay a price for it or that it is a factor in criminality."
To offset the right’s most extreme measures, the Macron government appears to be adopting a novel strategy: to accept Les Républicains’ demands, knowing full well that some of them will be invalidated by the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest constitutional court.
The president submitted the immigration bill to the high court on Wednesday to “decide on its conformity in whole or in part with the Constitution", Véran announced. Borne has also suggested that some of the bill’s measures are unconstitutional and that the text would likely “evolve".
But it’s a risky bet, according to Camus. "French people will have a hard time understanding that the law has been emptied of its substance," he warned.
"This will inevitably benefit the National Rally and the idea, which is already beginning to take hold, that a 'government of judges' works against the interests of the country."
This article was translated from the original in French.
