French parliament passes controversial immigration law, fracturing political majority

By Nur Asena Erturk

ANKARA (AA) – France’s parliament has passed into law a controversial immigration bill that left the government’s majority in the assembly divided.

With 535 lawmakers casting ballots on Tuesday, 349 of them voted for the bill, and 186 against.

Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau submitted his resignation over the hardline text of the bill, French daily Le Figaro reported. Several of his colleagues threatened to resign if the text was too strong.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne hailed the passage of the law early on Wednesday in a post on X, describing it as "necessary, useful, expected by the French."

One out of four lawmakers in President Emmanuel Macron's camp didn’t vote in favor of the bill, Le Figaro said.

Far-right leader and Macron rival Marine Le Pen hailed the bill, calling it “a great ideological victory for our movement.”

- Parliamentary process

The first version of the bill was passed on Nov. 14 by the Senate and was scheduled for debate by lower house MPs starting on Dec. 11.

Green groups submitted a motion to dismiss the bill which won 270-265, with the support of opposition parties, including left- and right-wing factions, and the bill was thus de facto rejected.

But then the government formed a joint committee of seven senators and seven MPs who found a consensus between the majority and the opposition, with a reviewed version of the text.

After the Senate’s passage of the revised text on Tuesday, MPs mostly voted in favor of the bill.

The Constitutional Council will now verify the text's validity, and the law will enter into force once it is published in the Official Gazette.

- Immigration bill

The bill was Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin's project.

It aims to harden the family reunification process, suppressing state medical assistance and requiring French proficiency as a condition for a residency permit, among other measures.

Article 3 of the draft law was the most debated and is related to giving a one-year residency permit under certain conditions to irregular foreign workers who operate in "sectors under tension," that suffer labor shortages.

Darmanin said previously that the law "would help better integration and better expelling."