At 5 pm on Monday, December 18, seven MPs and seven senators will meet behind closed doors at the Assemblée Nationale in Paris to try to find a common version of the government's bill to "control immigration" and "improve integration." Despite the unexpected rejection of the text on December 11 by a joint vote from the left, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) and right-wing Les Républicains (LR), the government wished to continue the parliamentary proceedings by convening a Joint Parliamentary Committee (CMP) "as soon as possible," in the words of government spokesman Olivier Véran.
"We have decided to quickly convene a joint committee to try to reach an agreement on this text, which must be able to find a majority in both the Sénat and the Assemblée Nationale," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on December 12, during a stormy question session in the Assemblée. "We will continue to seek agreements," she added. The government will nevertheless not be part of this joint committee between the two chambers of Parliament.
Only the 14 elected representatives with tenure and their substitutes will take part in the debate. They will not however vote on it. "Throughout the legislative process, from the presentation of the text to its promulgation, the government has the means to intervene, block or accelerate parliamentary work. The only unknown for them is the CMP," summed up Jean-Jacques Urvoas, former justice minister (2016-2017).
Divided up according to the political balance in the Sénat and the Assemblée Nationale and decided by simple majority, the fate of this CMP is in the hands of the lawmakers of the presidential coalition and the right.
Macron's supporters will be able to count on five elected representatives: the president of the Law Commission, Sacha Houlié (from Macron's Renaissance party), the general rapporteur for the text at the Assemblée, Florent Boudié (Renaissance), Marie Guevenoux (Renaissance), Elodie Jacquier-Laforge (MoDem, the centrist party led by Macron ally François Bayrou), and Olivier Bitz (senator for the Rassemblement des Démocrates Progressistes et Indépendants, RDPI). The right holds four seats, with Annie Genevard, LR senators' boss Bruno Retailleau, Sénat Law Commission president François-Noël Buffet, and senator Muriel Jourda. The Sénat majority is also represented by senator Philippe Bonnecarrère, whose centrist group is a LR ally in the Sénat. The radical left La France Insoumise (LFI) group has three seats, to be filled by Andrée Taurinya and Socialist senators Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie and Corinne Narassiguin. The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) group, which holds one seat, has nominated Yoann Gillet.
While CMPs alternate between the Assemblée Nationale and the Sénat, the one on the immigration bill will be held in the Assemblée. It will be chaired by Houlié, as president of the committee to which the text is attached. This gives the president of the Law Commission an advantage, according to Urvoas. "Whoever chairs the committee has the power to police it, and in particular decides when the CMP will end," he explained, before downplaying the importance of Monday's meeting. "What counts is the pre-CMP, in other words, the negotiations that take place beforehand. You don't enter into a CMP without already knowing the outcome," Urvoas said.
PM Borne was holding consultations right up to the last minute. A final meeting took place on Sunday evening in her office with LR president, Eric Ciotti, and the presidents of the right-wing groups in the Assemblée and Sénat, Olivier Marleix and Bruno Retailleau.
Faced with a government weakened by the rejection of its text in the Assemblée Nationale, the right is in a strong position. While CMPs are usually convened to find a compromise between the texts voted in the Assemblée and the Sénat, negotiations on the immigration bill are conducted based on the Sénat version only, as the Assemblée rejected the text. LR's leaders have remained adamant about this original text. "This morning, we confirmed to the prime minister our desire to see the Sénat's text adopted in a joint committee," Ciotti said on Thursday as he left a meeting with Borne.
During their examination of the text in the Sénat, lawmakers made the government's bill significantly harsher. Increasing the text from 27 to 94 articles, senators notably restricted the measure aimed at facilitating regularizations for workers in short-staffed occupations, abolishing State medical aid (AME) to transform it into emergency medical aid, restoring the offense of illegal residence and introducing migratory quotas.
Red-lines for the presidential camp include maintaining the AME, the absence of restrictions on the right of citizenship and the withdrawal of the article that makes certain social benefits conditional to five years of residency in France. But some Macronists have called for the demands of LR to be met, to encourage a conclusive CMP and the adoption of the text.
In the run-up to the CMP, due to be held behind closed doors on Monday, several left-wing MPs called on Assemblée Nationale President Yaël Braun-Pivet to make the debates public. "Too many suspicions of obscure maneuvers have surrounded this debate for months. I solemnly ask the Assemblée president to allow this transparency that nothing in our rules forbids," urged left-wing MP Benjamin Lucas.
A discussion on this issue had already taken place at the time of the CMP on pension reform in March. Faced with a pressing demand from the left to allow the debates to be broadcast live, Braun-Pivet refused, citing the institution's rules of procedure. "The publicity of the committee's work is ensured only by a written record of the committee's work and votes, as well as the speeches made before it, to the exclusion of any other procedure," she ruled.
If lawmakers reach an agreement on Monday, a vote will take place in both chambers the following day: in the Sénat at 2:30 pm and in the Assemblée at around 4:30 pm, for possible final adoption. In the meantime, elected representatives will not have the opportunity to amend the text. The version resulting from the CMP will be the one that is put to the vote.
While Borne has the option of using Article 49.3 of the Constitution to pass the text without a vote, President Emmanuel Macron has made it clear that this is "out of the question," even if it means losing another vote in the Assemblée on the bill. In the event of another failed vote or an inconclusive CMP, Macron said that the immigration text would have to be abandoned.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.