On May 21, France’s right-leaning governmental party Les Républicains (LR) unveiled a massive anti-immigration plan that seeks to undermine globalist French President Emmanuel Macron’s party.
In their interviews with the media, three key LR leaders revealed what the two bills that they had hoped to suggest to the National Assembly entailed. LR President Éric Ciotti claimed that the anti-immigration plan was to “totally change the framework of migration policy” and to enable France to “stop mass immigration.”
Similarly, Bruno Retailleau, LR leader in the Senate, expressed support for the bills by stating, “The French tell us in all the polls that there are too many immigrants. We must regain control.”
The goal of the first bill is to pave the way for a referendum on migration policy, which the constitution of the Fifth Republic does not presently permit. Such a constitutional amendment would also permit “the possibility of derogating from the primacy of treaties and European law when the fundamental interests of the nation are at stake” to be enshrined in the Constitution, contended Retailleau.
Although French media outlets such as Valeurs Actuelles regularly cite Denmark’s approach toward immigration regulation as a model for France to emulate, critics have asserted that Denmark’s situation differs from the French one. When Denmark joined the EU, it could still enjoy benefits by working its way around EU treaties in a manner that France, as a founding member state, cannot.
The second bill proposed by the LR is premised on four fundamental principles: control of social and medical aid, portrayed as the “suction pumps” of immigration; facilitation of deportations; reinstatement of the double penalty; as well as the limitations on the droit du sol (jus soli), the latter to eventually do away with the right to citizenship to a child whose parents are illegal foreigners in France.
Observers have speculated on the LR’s motives for proposing this massive anti-immigration plan. These observers posit that the party hopes to portray itself as a united front following previous divisions regarding the vote on France’s pension reform. While some LR members indicated that they were prepared to overthrow the government, not all parliamentarians from the party were in tune with their position.
Also, another theory put forth by commentators is that the LR hopes to be seen to be in sync with French public opinion polls regarding the need for immigration control. For instance, a poll conducted by the CSA Institute for the media outlet CNEWS that was published on April 26 showed that 82 percent of respondents championed an immigration law that would enable increased deportations.
If the Macron-led government persists in its approach to managing immigration, the LR party allegedly plans to position itself as a strong opponent of such an approach. The French “expect a real reform,” asserted Olivier Marleix, leader of the LR deputies. “This is why I will table a motion of censure if the government tries to pass a lax text through 49.3” on the subject of immigration, he cautioned.
Another French party, the Rassemblement National (RN), lambasted the LR party’s anti-immigration plan as a plagiarism of RN leader Marine Le Pen’s ideas.
MP Laure Lavalette, RN spokeswoman, listed the various similarities between the two LR bills and Le Pen’s presidential ideas.
“If this is not plagiarism or copy and paste, I wonder what it is,” she said.
Furthermore, Lavalette accused the LR of a lack of credibility on the immigration issue. She slammed the LR for pledging to adopt a hardline stance on France’s immigration crisis without taking firm action when the LR was in power. However, Lavalette said that although her party regards the LR’s propositions as incomplete, the RN would still vote for the LR Plan as it would be “a step in the right direction.”
Besides getting criticism from right-wing circles in France, Macron recently irked leftist lawmakers with his comments that France is undergoing a “process of decivilization,” in response to nationwide protests that were sparked off by Macron’s proposed pension reforms.
French leftists typically regard the use of the term “decivilization” as an allusion to the controversial French writer-thinker Renaud Camus and his 2011 book Décivilisation. Camus is known for his notion of the “great replacement,” which stated that globalist elites across the Western world have been trying to substitute European populations with people from the global south.
Alluding to the violent atmosphere in France that has witnessed assaults against representatives and symbols of the French state, such as elected officials and police officers, Macron commented, “We have to be uncompromising when it comes to substance. No violence is legitimate, whether verbal or against people. We need to work in depth to counter this process of decivilization.”
However, leftist lawmakers chose to ignore France’s key problems but focused on Macron’s choice of words. For instance, Alexis Corbière, a La France Insoumise (LFI) lawmaker in the National Assembly, castigated Macron’s use of the term “decivilization,” saying, “To consider that this would be a pure coincidence is either a farce or distressing.”
Meanwhile, RN’s Le Pen responded to Macron’s use of words by saying, “For years now, I’ve been talking about enslavement, and I’ve been accused of all kinds of evils. Emmanuel Macron has once again proved us right about what we’re saying, except that we’ve been sounding the alarm for several years now, and he hasn’t listened.”
On a side note, Le Pen dismissed allegations that the RN supported Russian actions in Ukraine after a French parliamentary report accused the RN of dealings with the Kremlin.
This report, which was prepared by Macronist MP Constance Le Grip, detailed the supposed existence of a “transmission belt” between RN leadership and the Kremlin and highlighted RN leaders’ public approval of the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. Additionally, the inquiry also singled out financial loans to the RN from a Czech-Russian bank as proof of its pro-Russian allegiances.
Subsequently, Le Pen rejected the report as “politicized” and factually untrue, stating that the inquiry was initially suggested by her party to end all allegations that the RN was linked to Russia.
