The French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, has warned this Tuesday, alluding to the right and the extreme right, that a zero immigration policy is unfeasible, as well as "demagogic and dangerous". Borne has intervened in a government statement and subsequent debate in the National Assembly, a step prior to the presentation of a bill to reform immigration and asylum law at the beginning of 2023.
The head of the Government has confirmed the intention to regularize part of the undocumented foreigners who already work in sectors where there is a lack of labor, such as hospitality or construction. It will not be a massive regularization and it will be done with conditions. Borne insisted on the philosophy of balance already expressed by President Emmanuel Macron, in which "firmness and humanity" are combined.
The head of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, said that immigration "is a freely agreed contract" between those who arrive and those who welcome. According to Darmanin, racism and political extremism increase when laws are too lax or not enforced. The minister insisted that there will be French exams to renew residence permits, to ensure that immigrants are on the right path to integration.
The president of the National Regroupment (RN, extreme right) parliamentary group, Marine Le Pen, stressed that for years France has been following a wrong policy, with a right to asylum that has been overwhelmed. Le Pen wondered why France should welcome populations from the Middle East or North Africa when these people, according to them, could settle in the oil-rich Gulf monarchies. For the far-right leader, immigration and its debate are "an ocean of lies and manipulation", and she warned that France, with her too open attitude, "has ruined" and her public services they are on the edge. Le Pen called for a referendum for the French people to pronounce on immigration policy.
The leader of the La Francia Insumisa (LFI) group, Mathilde Panot, accused the government of a hypocritical policy that now tolerates the work of irregular immigrants.
