Presidential: what do Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen propose on immigration?

As in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen both qualified for the second round of the presidential election on Sunday evening. If elected, the leader of the far-right party will make immigration the big cause of her mandate by removing a whole series of measures – such as family reunification, ius soli or State Medical Aid . The candidate president is less expansive on the subject but nevertheless wishes to expel a greater number of foreign nationals and toughen the conditions of access to residence permits. Decryption. The outgoing president, Emmanuel Macron, and the leader of the National Rally (RN) Marine Le Pen will face each other in the home stretch of the presidential election on April 24. As in 2017, the two protagonists qualified in the first round, with 27.84% of the votes for the candidate of the Republic on the move (LREM) and 23.15% for the far-right candidate. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen disagreed on a number of issues, including immigration. InfoMigrants returns to the immigration proposals of the two presidential finalists. Marine Le Pen and national preference The head of the RN is in favor of a hard line on the subject and will make immigration the great cause of his mandate. It intends to set up a referendum to apply its main measures. Its flagship proposal consists of inscribing national preference in the Constitution, in order to circumvent its preamble which dictates the “fundamental principles”. Clearly, Marine Le Pen wishes to reserve jobs, social housing and social assistance for people with French nationality. “The French will once again be masters at home. […] Our country comes first, our families come first, our people come first!”, she hammered during her campaign. >> To (re) read: Presidential 2022: when candidates talk nonsense about immigrationThis discriminatory measure is however difficult to apply.The national priority, as desired by the extreme right, would be contrary to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to which France is bound as a Member State, recalled Liberation last September.As the text emphasizes: equal work, equal pay and the same rights.Le Pen’s measures, difficult or even impossible to applyMarine Le Pen also intends to put an end to family reunification, jus soli and “State Medical Aid (AME). But again in practice, such measures would be difficult to apply without flouting a number of texts. Family reunification is governed by European law and is governed by the Constitution. French version. As for the law of the soil, to repeal it would amount to creating stateless persons. However, France is a signatory to international conventions which prohibit the creation of stateless persons on its territory. The head of the National Rally also plans to abolish residence permits for foreigners who have not worked within 12 months, to toughen the obtaining naturalization and processing asylum applications abroad.> To (re)read: Presidential 2022: why “seeking asylum from a French embassy abroad” is impossibleOn this last point, InfoMigrants has repeatedly demonstrated that measurement was simply impossible. First of all because it is opposed to international law but also because it attests to a real ignorance of the reality experienced by exiles in their country of origin. Not everyone has the opportunity to apply for asylum in their own country or in a neighboring country, for various reasons: fear of being spotted by the authorities, fear of being identified as wishing to come to France, fear of reprisals. Not to mention that in some cases, embassies are closed or inaccessible. Finally, Marine Le Pen wants the “systematic” expulsion of illegal immigrants, delinquents and foreign criminals. Emmanuel Macron and the myth of expulsions If Emmanuel Macron espouses the ideas of his opponent and that he is less expansive on the subject, he nevertheless agrees with her on the expulsion of nationals of foreign countries who “disturb public order”. It is still necessary that the States concerned agree to recover them and issue passes. Some countries, in diplomatic conflict with France, refuse to hand over these documents. This is particularly the case of Algeria. “Algiers has instructed its consular network in France to no longer ensure any consular hearing and not to issue any laissez-passer”, says a letter from the Ministry of the Interior and revealed in January by Médiapart and Street press To force them to take back their nationals, Emmanuel Macron intends to reduce the volume of visas. A technique, with limited effects, which had already been used at the end of last year with Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and which had caused a diplomatic crisis with these Maghreb countries. >> To (re) read: Presidential election 2022: why the expulsion of all undocumented migrants is impossible? Always with the aim of increasing expulsions, the president candidate for his re-election wants the refusal of asylum to be systematically accompanied by an obligation to leave the territory French (OQTF). This measure would “reduce the cumbersomeness of the procedures to guarantee faster removal measures”, estimates Emmanuel Macron. But the OQTF does not mean an automatic return to the border: the document gives a period of 30 days to the undocumented person to leave French territory by their own means. It is only beyond this period that she can be sent to an administrative detention center (CRA) and expelled after various appeals. The outgoing president finally wishes to review the conditions for access to residence permits for more than four years, conditioning them “to a French exam and a real process of professional integration”. Conditions similar to those currently required to obtain French nationality.