French immigration reforms put Emmanuel Macron’s leadership to the test

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French President Emmanuel Macron faces a perilous parliamentary test on Monday, as doubts mount over whether he can secure majority support for his long-promised immigration reforms.

Opposition parties have heaped pressure on Macron’s government with a last-minute parliamentary tactic, known as a motion to dismiss, which could reject the draft law before it even reaches the National Assembly floor for debate. 

The threat is the latest sign of how Macron’s ability to legislate has been hampered since his re-election last year stripped his centrist alliance of its majority. His decision in April to override lawmakers to pass his flagship reform to raise the retirement age without a vote sparked street protests and backlash from political opponents.

Losing the vote on Monday would not necessarily kill the immigration draft law, but it would be an embarrassing setback both for Macron and interior minister Gérald Darmanin, who has spent months trying to win votes from the conservative Les Republicains (LR) party. 

“This is a draft law that takes a firm stance against illegal immigration and foreigners who commit crimes . . . I can’t see how rightwing lawmakers can vote against it,” Darmanin said on France Info on Friday. “We must find a compromise.”

But Eric Ciotti, LR leader in the National Assembly, has vowed to vote against the current draft. “We’ll not be complicit in the predictable failure” of a proposal “without ambition”, Ciotti said. 

Macron’s government, under pressure from Marine Le Pen’s resurgent far-right and a hardening of public opinion on immigration, has touted the reforms as a fix for longstanding problems. It would tighten the asylum system, reduce the number of appeals applicants can make from 12 to 2, require proficiency in French, and aim to improve France’s relatively poor record of removals.

But it also includes proposals, slammed by those on the right, to give work permits to undocumented people who are employed in sectors with labour shortages, such as construction and healthcare. It is an example of Macron’s en même temps (at the same time) policymaking catchphrase, and a reflection of how the French president has long sought to borrow ideas from left and the right. 

The LR and Le Pen’s Rassemblement National say the law amounts to an amnesty to reward people who came to France illegally. Although the government has estimated that it would affect only about 7,000 workers a year, opponents say it would be much higher.

“If we want to reduce the number of illegal migrants, once and for all, we have to send a firm signal that those who come must respect our rules,” said Edwige Diaz, a Rassemblement National MP.

The government may again resort to using an override mechanism on the immigration law, although both Darmanin and prime minister Élisabeth Borne have said they do not want to. Doing so allows opposition parties to file no-confidence motions to bring down the government. 

Critics of Macron’s approach argue that the new law consists of largely technocratic tweaks to procedures and administrative rules on what is an increasingly incendiary political issue.

The travails of the proposed law, which was initially floated a year ago but repeatedly delayed, has played into Le Pen’s hands by allowing her to criticise the government as out of touch with public opinion.

Le Pen called it a “small, administrative law” that would not solve the problem of “anarchic immigration”, and likened it to dozens of similarly ineffective reforms enacted in past decades.

Her programme calls for a change in the French constitution to avoid EU rules on migration and asylum, as well as giving French citizens priority over foreigners for social housing and public sector jobs.

The return of Islamist terror attacks on French soil has played into the immigration debate. In one incident, a Chechen-born 20-year old man who claimed allegiance to Islamic State killed a teacher. The investigation found that he had benefited from a loophole to overturn a removal order against him, prompting Darmanin to argue that his new law was needed to close it.

Much is at stake in the coming parliament session. “There’s a critique that has risen that the state is powerless and ineffective on controlling immigration,” said Marc Ferracci, an MP from Macron’s Renaissance party. “It’s actually not true, but that’s what people believe. We have to prove we can.”