PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron faced a major rebellion within his own party from left-leaning deputies on Tuesday in a crisis sparked by the backing of a toughened-up immigration bill by the far right under Marine Le Pen.
Macron swept to power in 2017 heading a broad centrist movement that rallied together the left and the right, but that fragile unity now risks cracking over the legislation.
Various amendments have seen the immigration measures further tightened from when the bill was originally submitted, with the left accusing the government of caving in to pressure from the far right.
Le Pen endorsed the new-look bill but key left-leaning members of Macron’s Renaissance Party and allied factions indicated they could no longer support it, with several ministers reportedly threatening to resign.
“We can rejoice in ideological progress, an ideological victory even for the National Rally (RN), since this is now enshrined into law as a national priority,” said Le Pen, a three-time presidential candidate who leads the RN’s lawmakers in parliament and is widely expected to stand again for president in 2027.
The RN had previously said it would vote against the bill or abstain.
Le Pen’s announcement came after a commission of upper-house senators and lower-house National Assembly MPs agreed a new draft of the bill, which had been voted down without being debated in the National Assembly last week in a major blow to Macron.
The legislation was, as expected, passed by the Senate but faces a far stiffer test in the National Assembly later Tuesday.
While on paper the government has the numbers for the legislation to be passed with the support of the right-wing Republicans, there are growing concerns within Macron’s camp.
Prominent left-leaning Renaissance MP Sacha Houlie said he would vote against the legislation and called on others to follow, with some sources saying that around 30 pro-Macron MPs could do so.
In a sign of the seriousness of the situation, Macron called a meeting of his ruling party at the Elysee palace ahead of the vote, party sources told AFP.
According to a participant at the meeting, Macron said he would submit the bill to a new reading rather than promulgate it if it were passed only with the help of the votes from Le Pen’s RN.
This means the government would not count the RN’s votes in support of the bill.
Health Minister Aurelien Rousseau, Higher Education Minister Sylvie Retailleau and Housing Minister Patrice Vergriete were meeting Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and warned they could resign, sources told AFP.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, an ambitious 41-year-old who has spearheaded the legislation, had warned Sunday that Le Pen risked winning the 2027 presidential election if the bill were not passed.
The left and hard-left have reacted with horror to the prospect of the legislation being passed, with the head of Socialist lawmakers in the National Assembly, Boris Vallaud, calling it a “great moment of dishonor for the government.”
Passing the legislation is critical for Macron, who cannot stand again in 2027 after two consecutive terms and risks being seen as a lame duck with more than three years left of his term.
The government does not have a majority in parliament since the legislative elections that followed his re-election in 2022.
“The political crisis around the immigration bill is a moment of truth where all the fragilities of Emmanuel Macron’s mandate are coming together,” the Le Monde daily said in an editorial.
Dozens of NGOS slammed what they described as potentially the “most regressive” immigration law in decades.
It is “the most regressive bill of the past 40 years for the rights and living conditions of foreigners, including those who have long been in France,” around 50 groups including the French Human Rights League said in a joint statement.
A key element is now that social security benefits for foreigners be conditional on five years of presence in France, or 30 months for those who have jobs.
Migration quotas can also now be agreed and there are also measures for dual-national convicts being stripped of French nationality.
“With this text directly inspired by RN pamphlets against immigration, we are facing a shift in the history of the republic and its fundamental values,” French Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel said.