Even Yaël Braun-Pivet, the lower house of parliament’s president, who voted in favour of the Bill, told BFM TV she was “terribly bothered” by some of its content, in particular delaying access to welfare benefits for migrants with children.
The rebels in Mr Macron’s party could further weaken his hold on parliament, where he lacks an absolute majority, and complicate the rest of his five-year mandate.
A key part of the new French immigration law will make social security benefits for foreigners conditional on being in France for at least five years, or 30 months for those who have jobs, echoing some of the National Rally’s longtime campaign lines. It also removes automatic citizenship for foreign children born in France. They must now formally request citizenship between the ages of 16 and 18.
In a surprise move that embarrassed the Macron camp, the National Rally on Tuesday announced it would back the latest version of the Bill.
It comes six months before European Parliament elections in which Ms Le Pen’s party is currently polling in first place. With European sentiment hardening on immigration, the EU on Wednesday agreed to an overhaul of its asylum laws that includes more border detention centres and speedier deportations,
The government managed to pass the law thanks to a last-minute pledge not to enact the legislation if it didn’t get enough support without support from the National Rally. But while the government did not need Le Pen MPs to pass the legislation, it would have failed if they had voted against the Bill.
A ‘sickening victory’
While the law may not seem radical compared to recent measures introduced in the UK and other countries, critics in France see it as trampling on the country’s sacred universalist principles because it introduces discrimination based on nationality.
Taking to social media, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a hard-Left politician said: “It’s a sickening victory.”
He said that without the 88 votes of the National Rally, the government would have “less than the absolute majority … A new political axis is appearing”.
The Left-leaning heads of two French counties, the Lot and Seine-Saint-Denis, announced that they would not enforce “national preference” over welfare and that legal migrants would continue to receive handouts under current conditions.
But Ms Borne defended the Bill, arguing that it contained progressive measures including a ban on putting underage illegal migrants in detention centres and easier procedures for undocumented workers to obtain their papers.
“Stop sloganising, posturing, and implying that there’s a similarity between our Bill and the positions of the far right,” she said. “The far-Right stands for national preference. We believe in integrating [foreigners] through work.”
Olivier Véran, the government’s spokesman, went further calling Ms Le Pen’s claims to have inspired the Bill “intellectual fraud”.
“Don’t fall into the trap laid by those who wish to manipulate emotions. This text is not a National Rally text,” he said.
Ms Borne added: “We wanted to pass a law on useful, effective measures that our fellow citizens expect, with two objectives: to remove more quickly and more effectively those who have no right to be in France, and to better integrate those we choose to welcome.”
However, she admitted that some of the provisions were probably unconstitutional, adding that the text “would have to evolve” once it had been examined by the constitutional council after referral by Macron.
The council is due to do so on Wednesday. It has a month to examine the law and could strike down some of its more contentious measures.
