If the rejection of the immigration law on Monday evening represents a snub for the government, it cannot be ruled out at this stage that it could motivate the executive to dissolve the National Assembly. Gérald Darmanin, however, was cautious on this point.
Faced with the immigration bill carried by Gérald Darmanin, the oppositions finally seem to have found common ground despite their glaring differences of opinion Monday December 11, 2023, reminding with its rejection to the executive of its lack of majority in the Assembly national. “With the rejection of this law, those in power would do well to remember that there is a Parliament in this country. If they had made us vote more on certain subjects – pensions, the budget – they would have had the same failure “, pointed out the Insoumise Mathilde Panot.
The president of the LFI group in the National Assembly also underlined that the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, has already drawn the now famous 49.3 around twenty times since her arrival in Matignon in May 2022. A point that the member of the National Rally , Marine Le Pen, also took great pleasure in reminding journalists after the adoption of the motion to reject the immigration bill on Monday.
But if this rejection is a “failure” for the government, as Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin admitted on TF1’s 20 Hours on Monday evening, the executive has in its possession a tool that could potentially help it to change the situation: a dissolution of the National Assembly. If he deemed it relevant for the rest of his mandate, Emmanuel Macron could completely dissolve it, once again summoning voters to the polls to elect new deputies perhaps, this time, more inclined to vote for his texts of law.
Questioned on the subject by Gilles Bouleau on Monday evening, Gérald Darmanin was however cautious about this option. “It’s not up to me to answer this question,” he began by brushing it off, before adding, faced with the journalist’s insistence: “I think that after retirements, where there are had a comedy – we saw that the LRs did not take their responsibilities to protect the French economically -, after immigration, where the LRs did not take their responsibilities while the hand was outstretched […], we sees clearly that there, clearly, the LRs do not want to and are pursuing a policy of the worst”, thus criticizing his former party.
Following his response, the Minister of the Interior still stated that the executive must “take [its] measures to protect the French”. “Afterwards, the voters will choose. […] I have never been afraid of going back in front of the voters,” he added, thus leaving doubt. Still, a dissolution of the National Assembly seems to be a double-edged sword for the executive. If it could make it possible to reshuffle the cards of the game, this is in fact not without risk for him either. In the event of new legislative elections, the French could just as easily decide to give even more weight to the opposition, which would further complicate the government’s task until the next presidential election in 2027.
