The French authorities want to adopt a new immigration law next year, a spokeswoman said, as the new right-wing government seeks to crack down on immigration.
“There will be a need for a new law,” government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon told broadcaster BFMTV on Sunday.
The government’s plan to tighten immigration policies and border controls is emblematic of the rightward shift in French politics following this summer’s legislative elections that resulted in a hung parliament.
Photo: AFP
French Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government hopes the bill would be submitted to parliament at the beginning of next year.
Last month, a Paris student was raped and murdered in a case that has further inflamed a French debate on migration after a Moroccan was named as the suspected attacker.
The government wants to extend the detention period for undocumented migrants deemed to be dangerous to better enforce expulsion orders.
One of the options under consideration is to increase the maximum period of detention from 90 to 210 days, which is now only possible for terrorist offenses.
“We don’t rule out the possibility of considering other provisions,” Bregeon said, adding that there should be “no taboos when it comes to protecting the French.”
In December last year, France already passed an immigration law. The bill was hardened to gain the support of far-right and right-wing lawmakers. However, the country’s highest constitutional authority censured most of the new amendments, which were dropped before French President Emmanuel Macron signed it into law.
The measures struck down by the Constitutional Council “will serve as a basis for the new immigration bill,” a government source said. “Some of them could be modified and there will be additions.”
The most hardline member of the government, French Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, has vowed to crack down on immigration.
He has stirred controversy just days into the job, saying that “the rule of law is neither intangible nor sacred.”
Retailleau, who previously headed the Republicans party in the Senate, was seen as the driving force behind the tough legislation last year.
He wants to reinstate the offense of illegal residence, among other measures.
Gabriel Attal, Barnier’s predecessor and now leader in parliament of Macron’s Renaissance party, yesterday said that a new law on immigration did not seem a “total priority.”
“Adopting a law for the sake of a law makes no sense,” he told broadcaster France inter.
He said “the priority is to act so that the state can truly control who enters and leaves” France.
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