Integration of foreigners, respect for French laws, easier access to work in sectors in tension: these are the three pillars of the immigration bill that the government intends to vote in Parliament in early 2023, with the help of the Republicans.
In an interview published Wednesday in Le Figaro, the Ministers of the Interior and Labor, Gérald Darmanin and Olivier Dussopt, present the main lines of the text to be presented to the Council of Ministers in mid-January.
Among the key measures is the creation of a residence permit for sectors in tension, which lack manpower, such as construction and medico-social.
“We suggest that it be accessible to foreigners present in the territory for at least three years, and who have a professional seniority of at least eight months”, details Olivier Dussopt.
This measure “will concern a few thousand people a year. So we are not at all in the process of massive regularization”, he adds in response to fears of a “draught of air” expressed by Les Républicains and by the National Rally, first opposition group in the National Assembly where the government has only a relative majority.
Insee published last month a list of 30 tense professions, which include activities related to the building but also the professions of home assistant, butcher, plumber and real estate agent.
The problem of labor shortage concerns other states such as Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that his country must be able to attract more foreign workers and facilitate the employment of women and seniors in order to meet needs and avoid a crisis in its pension system. The German government plans to reform its legislation in order to attract workers from outside the European Union.
Spain, for its part, modified this year its regulations relating to the issuance of residence permits, in particular allowing migrants to work in the country nine months a year out of a total of four years in order to support sectors such as the construction, according to the Department of Social Security.
Voting of the text
Called to complete the “asylum and immigration” law of 2018, the French government’s project intends to reform the right to asylum. Thus, any person expelled on the basis of an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) will not be able to apply for a visa for five years. The text also restores the “double penalty”, the possibility of expelling foreigners sentenced to sentences of at least ten years in prison – five years in the event of a repeat offence.
Among the other proposals are a strengthening of border controls and the means to promote the mastery of the French language by foreigners wishing to stay in the country.
Coming from the right for one, from the left for the other, the two ministers do not hide their desire to convince LR to vote for this text in Parliament.
“Some of the LRs have understood that we are making common sense proposals. I know it because I come from it: everything that the LRs have always asked for on immigration, we offer it”, assures Gérald Darmanin.
For the first time since his election as president of LR, MP Eric Ciotti, a supporter of a hard security line, met Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Wednesday at Matignon.
By opening a debate without a vote devoted to immigration on December 6 in the National Assembly, the latter had expressed its wish to build a “balanced” text, considering that “zero immigration is neither desirable nor possible, no more realistic than unregulated immigration is”. (Report Elizabeth Pineau with contributions from Layli Foroudi in Paris, Kristi Knolle in Berlin and Corina Rodriguez in Madrid, edited by Kate Entringer)
