Macron, who visited India yesterday, signed the initiative abroad as the council's decision was announced late on Thursday.
“The Wise Men”, as the nine members of the body are called on French soil, eliminated or amended 35 of the 86 articles of the law adopted on December 19 by the National Assembly and the Senate, changes that were celebrated by the government and very celebrated were criticized by the right and the extreme right.
The Constitutional Council condemned the differentiated access to social benefits for foreigners, the restoration of the missing criminal offense of “irregular residence”, the introduction of immigration quotas, the obstacles to family reunification and the creation of a fund as a condition for the admission of young foreigners to French universities.
Likewise, restrictions on land law (nationality for children of foreigners born in France) were lifted and elements originally promoted by the executive branch were adopted to integrate undocumented workers working in positions with labor shortages.
The immigration law was passed by Parliament on the basis of a consensus text agreed in a mixed commission of senators and MPs from the ruling party and the Conservatives, who negotiated to their advantage and ensured that the norm approved in the upper house took precedence. that they control.
The government then assumed that it did not entirely like the initiative and appealed to the Constitutional Council in the hope that it would invalidate or amend several articles, which it ultimately did.
From the traditional right (conservative party The Republicans) to the extreme right (Rassemblement National), they criticized the Council, accusing it of carrying out a “coup of law or force” and of going against what is supposedly good for France: the tough hand on the issue of immigration.
The day before, the President of the Constitutional Council, Laurent Fabius, described the questioning of the institution he leads on public television as very worrying.
In this sense, he specified that the opinion given was of a purely legal nature.
On the left, broad circles stuck to their questions about the law and called on Macron not to bring it into force.
npg/wmr