French government promises new bill on immigration in nod to far right

PARIS — The French government wants to reform the country’s immigration law — again.

“There will need to be a new immigration law,” Maud Bregeon, spokesperson for Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government, said on Sunday.

Bregeon’s announcement comes less than a year after the previous immigration bill, adopted last December, fractured the unity of the former government and was labeled an “ideological victory” by far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

The new bill should be introduced early next year, Bregeon said, and would include provisions destined to increase scrutiny on people living in France without legal permission, for example by upping the period of time during which individuals can be held in administrative centers while awaiting deportation.

Since Barnier’s appointment last month, the new French prime minister and his hard-right Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau have pledged to crack down on immigration, both legal and illegal, by pushing for reforms domestically and at the European level. The new interior minister’s hard-line stances have led to discomfort and outrage among centrist MPs who have backed French President Emmanuel Macron since his 2017 election.

France has joined a chorus of countries across Europe that are pushing for a clampdown on migration as populist parties notch up election victories, such as the Russia-friendly Freedom Party in Austria last month. The pressure is coming from far-right forces, but also from more liberal parties, such as the social democrats in Denmark and Germany. 

Migration is expected to feature prominently at a gathering of leaders at the European Council on Oct. 17 in Brussels. 

Retailleau is pushing to speed up the implementation of the EU’s hard-earned “Migration and Asylum Pact” reform of the bloc’s migration rules, which was passed only a couple of months ago and had been in the making for more than a decade. Advocates of tougher migration policies, Retailleau included, want to go further, urging strengthening control of the EU’s external border, speeding up deportations and boosting cooperation with transit countries.

Barnier’s minority government, supported by a narrow base of centrist and right-wing lawmakers, would need to seek support from beyond its own ranks. The French left will very likely fight the bill, which means the government will need some support from the far-right National Rally and its allies.

Still wounded by the aftermath of the previous immigration reform, which led to the resignation of the former health minister, centrist lawmakers voiced their skepticism after Bregeon’s announcement.

“Voting a bill for the sake of voting a bill … doesn’t seem like a priority,” said former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who now presides over the pro-Macron Renaissance group in the National Assembly. A new immigration debate could lead Attal’s group to “explode,” Renaissance parliamentarian Ludovic Mendes told POLITICO’s Playbook Paris.

The far right, meanwhile, is taking a victory lap. National Rally President Jordan Bardella proudly claimed that plans for a new immigration bill showed that “now, nothing in parliament can be done without us,” in an interview Monday.

Anthony Lattier contributed to this report.