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ELECTIONS

‘Double border’ and ‘national priority’: French immigration under far right

The far-right party of Marine Le Pen has vowed to promote a policy of "national priority" and drastically curb what it calls uncontrolled immigration in order to "preserve French civilisation."

'Double border' and 'national priority': French immigration under far right
A campaigner pastes an election poster of French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) candidate Sandrine Chadournec (C) in Libourne, southwestern France on July 2, 2024 (Photo by Philippe LOPEZ / AFP)

If it wins an absolute majority in the second round of snap elections on Sunday, the Rassemblement National (RN) party said it would adopt an “emergency” law on immigration, but the constitution and European treaties would have to be revised for the party’s programme to be implemented.

Here AFP looks at some of the most controversial proposals of the party which is currently the most popular in France.

‘National priority’

The Rassemblement National’s top political pillar is the principle of “national preference” — now called “national priority”. It would limit welfare benefits to only French nationals.

In April, France’s Constitutional Council rejected a request by the centre-right Republicans party to hold a referendum on immigration, which would include a proposal to make access to some welfare benefits conditional on the length of residence in the country.

Disadvantaged people should not be deprived of France’s “policy of national solidarity,” said Laurent Fabius, the Socialist head of the Council. The principle of national preference was contrary to the constitution, he said.

READ MORE: What is ‘national preference’ for the French and how would it hurt foreigners?

‘Double border’

RN party leader Jordan Bardella, who will become prime minister at the age of 28 if it wins an absolute majority, has proposed the introduction of a “double border”.

The measure would tighten controls at the European Union’s external borders and impose the return of national border controls to reserve free movement within the Schengen zone to “European nationals only”, says the RN.

Yves Pascouau, a senior research associate at the Institut Jacques Delors, said that Europeans cannot be banned from entering France.

“The Schengen agreements establish freedom of movement,” he said, adding that calling a referendum or revising the constitution would not help.

“This goes beyond French matters — it’s the Schengen agreements that apply,” he said.

State medical aid

Under the RN, the AME, which guarantees free medical care to undocumented migrants who have resided in France for more than three months, would be replaced with a fund covering only life-threatening emergencies.

The 1946 constitution states that France will ensure to the individual and to the family the conditions necessary for their development and that it guarantees the protection of health for “all.”

“To completely restrict this state medical aid, or to abolish it with all the dangers for public health that this could create, is to ignore the constitutional imperative,” said Anne-Charlene Bezzina, an expert in public law.

Birthright principle

The RN wants to abolish France’s centuries-old principle of “droit du sol”, which grants French nationality to people born in France to foreign parents on certain conditions.

The far-right party says that only people born to at least one French parent should have automatic access to French nationality.

Others can make a request to obtain citizenship.

France has recently moved to revoke birthright citizenship in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte to stem migration.

Bezzina suggested that the restriction of “droit du sol” across France would not pass unless the constitution was revised.

“The acquisition of nationality is enshrined in an 1889 decree, and has been continuously applied,” she said.

Dual nationals

Ahead of the first round of parliamentary elections, Bardella sparked an outcry by saying his party wanted to ban dual nationals from holding jobs in a number of sensitive sectors such as security and defence. He said “very few people” would be affected.

Macron’s government has slammed the proposal, which violates the principle of equality.

READ MORE: EXPLAINED: The French far-right’s proposal to ban dual nationals from certain jobs

“The message that you send is dual nationals are half-nationals,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told Bardella in a tense debate in June.

The proposal opens up the possibility of “recourse before the European Court of Human Rights or the Council of State”, said Serge Slama, an expert in public law.

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ELECTIONS

Why you should care about French election results even if you’re not in France

The French go to the polls on Sunday for the second round of what could be a seismic election for France - but what will the results mean for the rest of the world?

Why you should care about French election results even if you're not in France

Sunday in France is the second round of voting in the parliamentary elections – Emmanuel Macron remains in post whatever happens, but the elections are likely to drastically change the composition of the French parliament.

You can follow all the latest election news in English HERE.

Current polling suggests that the far-right Rassemblement National are likely to be the biggest party.

This would obviously have a big effect on domestic politics in France, but why should the rest of the world care?

Macron’s power 

We’ve said that Macron remains in post as president – unless he chooses to resign, something that he says he won’t do – but parliament can dramatically hobble his powers.

If the president’s party doesn’t win a majority in parliament then France enters what is known as a cohabitation – when the president is forced to share power with a prime minister from the biggest party.

Although it’s sometimes said that the French president has power over foreign, diplomatic and military policy while the prime minister deals with domestic issues, the constitution is a lot less clear-cut than that.

If Macron is forced to share power with a prime minister from a different party it’s likely that there will be significant constraints put on his decisions about any topic – particularly since parliament holds the purse strings for any policies that require new spending.

That is especially true if the prime minister is the RN’s Jordan Bardella.

The most likely result is a stalemate with very few decisions being taken at all.

The EU 

France is one of the ‘joint engines’ of the EU, along with Germany, so anything that happens in France affects the EU and how it functions – and this is especially true if the RN end up on top.

The party was previously an advocate of Frexit – France leaving the EU. Leader Marine Le Pen ditched that policy in 2022, but the party’s current programme is often described as ‘Frexit by stealth’ – in essence remaining in the EU but refusing to abide by its rules or pay France’s financial contribution.

At a minimum, the EU would lose one of its leading voices and would end up embroiled in endless rows over French national policy and contributions.

Mujtaba Rahman, Managing Director for Europe at Eurasia Group, told The Local: “The party’s programme involves a major confrontation with Europe on four fundamental pillars of the EU – the single market, the EU budget, enlargement policy and the European union’s fiscal framework. And that’s the moderate programme.

“They want to basically implement a spending programme that would ultimately undermine France’s legal commitments to the EU on fiscal policy, where Brussels wants the government to control spending and reduce the deficit.

“Bardella wants a rebate of €2billion per year – that’s a contribution that France is legally obliged to pay to the EU. That is European, not French money, according to the EU treaties and that’s over the budget, so there would be another confrontation there.

“There is a lot of chatter about the far right moderating, like Italian leader Georgia Meloni, but I think that completely mischaracterises the relationship between France and the EU. Italy has a much more subordinate relationship to the EU, whereas Europe is a lot more dependent on France.”

Military leadership and Ukraine 

France is also a military leader within Europe – the only nuclear power in the EU and one of the two major military forces in Europe (with the UK).

Although a change in government wouldn’t affect the country’s military capabilities it could bring about a major change in how they are used.

Emmanuel Macron has been a strong supporter of Ukraine since Russian’s full-scale invasion in 2022, pushing for both starting EU membership talks for the country and for more military involvement from the west.

This is exactly the opposite of what RN wants – the party blames European support of Ukraine for the rising cost of living and wants to end French involvement in the conflict.

There’s also the question of the party’s links to Russia – it has in the past accepted big loans from Putin-backed banks and has also been extremely reluctant to criticise Russia or Vladimir Putin.

France is also one of the five permanent members of the UN security council and a key member of NATO.

Stock markets 

France is the 7th largest economy in the world, so turmoil there affects international money markets.

The Bank of England released its half-yearly report just ahead of round one of voting and warned of political uncertainty in both France and the US affecting financial markets. 

“Policy uncertainty associated with upcoming elections globally has increased,” the bank said. “This could make the global economic outlook less certain and lead to financial market volatility.

“It could also increase existing sovereign debt pressures, geopolitical risks, and risks associated with global fragmentation, all of which are relevant to UK financial stability,” the BoE added.

Stock markets in other European countries have fluctuated over the last two weeks according to latest polling on the likelihood of a far-right victory in France.

Germany’s Finance Minister Christian Lindner warned ahead of the first round that France faces financial disaster if elections returned a government that increases the country’s large debt pile.

“A tragedy could threaten the French,” Lindner said, adding that the risk for France was similar to Britain when prime minister Liz Truss ordered a shock economic programme during her brief reign and “lost credibility with financial markets”.

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