At 3:40 pm on Tuesday, December 19, Marine Le Pen told journalists that the Rassemblement National (RN) MPs would in the end vote in favor of the immigration bill, which plunged Macron's camp deep into discomfort. The decision came as a complete surprise as the far-right party had always said that it would vote against the government's text. Laurent Jacobelli, the party's spokesman, himself learned of Le Pen's decision from a journalist.
Le Pen justified her decision by claiming an "ideological victory." In the eyes of the RN, the fact that the government has included a form of "national preference" in French law validated one of its most symbolic demands: the difference in rights between French citizens and foreigners legally living on French soil.
While this distinction already applies to access to certain professions and minimum social benefits, it would now be extended – subject to the decision from the French Constitutional Council – to other non-contributory benefits. Le Pen did not hide her delight: "I don't see how the elected representatives of the majority, led by the President of the Republic, will be able to criticize us tomorrow for defending the national priority, since they include the idea that it can be applied. They apply it minimally, but, in principle, this concept is validated."
Member of the far-right Reconquête! party Jean-Yves Le Gallou, whose 1985 book theorized national preference, rejoiced with this late harvest. "National preference has been banned and demonized. Today, the shocking reality has swept away points once considered impassable."
Another key element for Le Pen supporters was the first breach in the right to French citizenship in the name of jus soli, which is no longer automatic at the age of majority. The government's law, however, doesn't go as far as the RN's manifesto, which calls for the full abolition of jus soli, national preference regarding employment and housing, and the virtual abolition of family reunification.
The "ideological success" claimed by members of the RN also bares the fingerprints of the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) party, the government's obligatory partner given its weight in both chambers. Speaking before the vote to France Inter radio station on Tuesday morning, RN president Jordan Bardella expressed his dismay at the idea that his movement could, in his own words, validate "a new immigration channel." He criticized measures in the bill "to speed up the issuance of residence permits to people who come to work in our country, even if they do so illegally," seeing the permits as "a reward for illegality," likely to create a supposed "new call for immigrants". "If these measures are maintained, it's a red line, so we will abstain or vote against this text," he concluded at the time.
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