'Serious political crisis' - What next for French government after immigration bill failure?

On Monday the French parliament was due to begin debating the government's new immigration bill, but a last minute Motion de rejet (motion of rejection) unexpectedly succeeded in winning a backing of the majority of MPs, torpedoing the bill.

In ordinary circumstances perhaps the voting down of one bill would not be a crisis, but it under-scores the weakness of Macron's government, which lost its overall majority in parliamentary elections in the summer of 2022.

Since then it has struggled to pass legislation, relying on either the support of other parties or the controversial constitutional tool known as Article 49.3 to push measures through without a debate.

The immigration bill was supposed to be the major piece of legislation for the year, and without it the government looks increasingly fragile.

So what happens next?

Macron in an emergency meeting with ministers on Monday night - after refusing the offered resignation of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin - reportedly instructed his team to "make proposals to remove obstacles and produce an effective text [for the bill]. 

Leaving aside how much we all love getting such vague "just do it" instructions from the boss, here's a look at the options for the government.

Parliamentary steps

The government basically has two options - withdraw the bill or try alternative routes to get it passed through parliament.

Withdrawing the bill would be a major humiliation, and would leave them with little else on the agenda.

Monday's Motion de rejet was passed by just five votes (270 to 265) and succeeded only because it - highly unusually - won backing from both the far left and the far right, as well as some centre-right and centre-left MPs.

If the government wants to try alternative routes, there are two options;

The first is to send it back to the Senate, where right-wing lawmakers have a majority. If this were to happen the Senate would debate - and potentially amend - the bill once again. 

The second option involves sending the bill to the joint Senate-Assemblée committee (the commission mixte paritaire CMP) which is made up of seven National Assembly MPs and seven senators. The CMP would re-examine it to try to find some compromise on the basis of the bill that was adopted by the Senate in mid-November.

In both cases, the bill would have to come back again to the Assemblée nationale for debate, albeit probably in an altered form.

Possible changes

Because of the political composition of both the Senate and the CMP, it's likely that an altered bill would become more right-wing and elements that were 'red lines' for some on the right, such as the amnesty for undocumented workers in certain sectors, would be removed.

The former head of the Constitutional Council, Jean-Éric Schoettl, told Le Point magazine that if the bill goes back to the CMP, the resulting text could end up closer to that which was originally passed by the senate, as it "the CMP is more right-wing than the Assemblée".

The Senate had added more right-wing elements such as removing medical cover from undocumented people and placing further restrictions on the right to family reunification and French citizenship for children born in France to foreign parents. 

A more right-wing bill could see an easier parliamentary journey by gaining support from the rightwing Les Républicains and the far-right Rassemblement National, but it risks infuriating people to the left of Macron's own centrist party.

Will the government fall?

Immediately after the summer 2022 election which left Macron's centrist LREM as the largest group in parliament but without an overall majority, many were speculating that Macron would be forced to call new parliamentary elections to break the deadlock.

In the 18 months that followed the government has managed to function and pass some legislation, defying the more gloomy predictions. 

However the failure of the immigration bill is likely to reopen the topic of early parliamentary elections.

So far only a few voices are calling for 'dissolution' - dissolving parliament and calling new elections - but such calls could grow.

"Given the balance of power today, the mismatched parliamentary alliance demonstrating that we cannot carry out major reforms, I think we can envisage consulting the French people. In other words, a dissolution", said François Patriat, head of Macron's centrist Renaissance group in the Senate. 

Speaking before Monday's vote, a Macronist MP told Le Parisien: "If the Motion de rejet is adopted, we will be entering a serious political crisis, with few ways out."