2023–2024 French government crisis
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| Date | 11 December 2023–9 January 2024 |
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| Participants | Ensemble coalition MPs and ministers |
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President (2017–present)
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In December 2023, the Borne government faced a governability and credibility crisis. It was caused mainly by the difficult passage of the 2023 immigration and asylum bill, one of Emmanuel Macron's flagship manifesto commitments made during the 2022 presidential election.
The immigration reform bill was a draft legislation introduced in Parliament on 1 February 2023 by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. It was received negatively by opposition parties, in particular by the conservative Republicans (LR) who both hold a majority in the Senate and the balance of power in the National Assembly. The bill, whose legislative process was stalled for many months, was unexpectedly defeated in the National Assembly on 11 December, ultimately leading to Darmanin offering his resignation and Macron sending the bill to a joint parliamentary committee. The conservative-dominated joint committee agreed on a much tougher bill which earned the surprise endorsement of Marine Le Pen, causing confusion and anger inside Macronist ranks.
Several ministers, in a major breach of collective ministerial responsibility, openly threatened to resign if the bill was passed, while scores of MPs from the three Macronist parliamentary groups in the Assembly, including joint committee chair and prominent left-leaning figure inside Macron's camp Sacha Houlié, announced they would vote against the bill.
After the bill was passed on 19 December, Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau immediately resigned to protest against it. Meanwhile Higher Education Minister Sylvie Retailleau offered her resignation to protest measures affecting foreign students but remained in post after Macron gave her reassurances. Other ministers publicly voiced their opposition to the bill but did not act further on it.
In early January 2024, in spite of earlier public statements in which she expressed her intention to carry on as Prime minister, Borne reluctantly resigned at Macron's request. Borne remained as caretaker PM until Education Minister Gabriel Attal, the most popular figure in the outgoing Borne ministry, was appointed as PM on 9 January. He then formed a minority government from which he and Macron sacked the near-entirety of ministers who had rebelled in late December 2023.
Background
[edit]In May 2022, as it is customary after a presidential election in France, Macron appointed a new Prime minister: Élisabeth Borne became the second female head of government in French history.[1] She then formed a new government, the fourth since the start of the Macron Presidency.
A month into its tenure, the Borne government lost its parliamentary majority in the June 2022 legislative election: the governing coalition remained the largest bloc in the National Assembly but now fell well short of an overall majority in the lower house.[2] In spite of calls for Borne to resign as PM and the refusal from opposition parties to discuss a coalition agreement, Macron refused Borne's resignation offer and instead tasked her with forming a minority government.[3] In early July, Borne survived the first motion of no confidence tabled against her government.
In August 2022, Interior and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that the government would introduce an immigration bill in the autumn of that year after consulting with opposition parties.[4] After consultations highlighted the lack of a majority for the bill's passage, the bill's introduction was again delayed to early 2023.
In early February 2023, the immigration & asylum bill was introduced in the Senate after it was approved by the Council of Ministers:[5] a few weeks later, the bill's passage was halted after the government narrowly survived a no-confidence motion over its pension reform plan.[6]
In the aftermath of the political crisis triggered by the pension reform, various polls pointed to a sharp decline in the executive pair's popularity[7] while Le Pen's RN party extended its polling lead over Macron's coalition ahead of the upcoming 2024 European elections.[8] By the time of the final vote on the immigration bill, the RN had opened a 12-point lead over the Macronist alliance, the widest gap since Macron was first elected in 2017.[9]
Parliament
[edit]After months of gridlock, the government finally introduced back the draft legislation in the Senate in November 2023: the conservative-controlled upper house substantially toughened the bill, with the Interior Minister's support on several occasions. The Senate passed the heavily amended bill in first reading on 14 November.[10]
On 27 November 2023, the bill began its process in the National Assembly: the Macronist-led Law Committee thoroughly amended the Senate-approved draft, stamping out or lessening the majority of the upper house's changes.[11] On 11 December 2023, the report stage in the National Assembly began with a vote on a preliminary dismissal motion tabled by Green MPs: the motion was unexpectedly passed in a 270–265 vote, meaning the bill was defeated without further consideration in the lower house.[12]
The vote, marking the first time a sitting government was defeated on such motion in 15 years, effectively plunged the executive branch into crisis.[13] Darmanin offered his resignation to Macron later in the evening, but Macron refused it. RN party leader Jordan Bardella called on the President to dissolve the National Assembly while left-wing opposition parties called on the government to ditch the draft legislation.[14]
After the vote, the Prime minister convened her cabinet for a crisis meeting to seek a way forward, ultimately leading to the decision to send the bill to a conservative-dominated joint parliamentary committee rather than ditching the bill or sending it back to the Senate.[15]
Borne, now the de facto chief negotiator with The Republicans (LR) over the immigration legislation, met with LR leaders on multiple occasions both ahead of and during the joint committee stage: despite difficult talks and divisions inside the Macronist camp between left and right-leaning members, the negotiations led to a last-minute two-chapter agreement between the government and LR leadership.[16][17]
In the first part of this informal deal, the government would agree to support major LR-endorsed changes to the bill, ditching many previous red lines and getting the final bill closer to the version passed by the Senate. In the second part of the deal, the Prime minister solemnly promised that the government would overhaul the controversial "State Medical Assistance" (AME) system, a mechanism allowing illegal migrants to access Social Security-funded medical care on conditions, in a separate bill.[18] The scope of the concessions made to the right created concern for a number of Macronist MPs and party grandees.
On 19 December, the joint committee agreed on a drastically hardened bill, with measures limiting foreigners' access to social benefits, reforming Jus soli, restricting family reunification procedures and the implementation of a "return deposit" for foreign students coming from outside the EU among other things.[19]
Immediately after the finalized version of the bill was made public, parliamentary RN party leader Marine Le Pen hailed an "ideological victory" and announced that her MPs would support the legislation in the National Assembly.[20] Le Pen's decision prompted panic and confusion inside Macron's ranks, with large swathes of centrist MPs, already set off-balance by the deal struck with the conservatives, now refusing to vote along Le Pen on immigration matters.[21]
Additionally, prominent left-leaning ministers, such as Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak, Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau or Transports deputy minister Clément Beaune among others, reportedly met in the evening of the 19 December and threatened to resign if the bill was passed later that day.[22]
After convening a crisis meeting at the Élysée Palace, President Macron, advised to do so by close ally and MoDem party leader François Bayrou, tried to reassure his troops by announcing that he would not sign the bill into law, instead sending it back later to Parliament, if the legislation was approved thanks to RN votes in the National Assembly.[23]
In the evening of the 19 December 2023, both houses of Parliament passed the immigration & asylum bill, 214–114 in the Senate and then 349–186 in the National Assembly. In the lower house, 59 Macronist MPs (almost a quarter of the centrist coalition's MPs) defied the government either by abstaining (32) or voting against it (27), the largest parliamentary rebellion against a sitting government since the 1970s.[24]
Government turmoil
[edit]Immediately after the vote, Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau, appointed only 6 months earlier, resigned to protest against the bill's passage and the potential reform of the AME system[25] while Higher Education Minister Sylvie Retailleau offered her resignation but she remained in the government after Macron and Borne gave her reassurances on the measures affecting foreign students in France.[26]
In the days following the legislation's adoption, both Macron and his Prime minister publicly expressed doubts about the constitutionality of some of the bill's provisions despite having endorsed it through the parliamentary process, raising questions among politicians and legal scholars.[27] Shortly after, Macron referred the bill to the Constitutional Council to appease concerns raised inside his coalition.
Other ministers, such as Abdul-Malak (Culture) and Beaune (Transports) continued to publicly voice their opposition to the immigration law, while remaining in government.[28]
Furthermore, the governing coalition appeared to be left weaker and deeply divided by the passage of the bill, with MPs questioning their political affiliation and 2 MPs eventually quitting Macron's alliance in Parliament.[29]
Additionally, freshly-appointed Health Minister Agnès Firmin-Le Bodo became embroiled in scandal over corruption allegations, raising doubts over her future in government.[30]
Resignation of Élisabeth Borne
[edit]In late 2023-early 2024, news media reported that a growing number of MPs and members from Macron's coalition wanted to see a change of Prime minister in the coming weeks, in an effort to relaunch the President's troubled second term and move on the contentious immigration debate.[31] On 7 January 2024, MoDem party leader François Bayrou said that "changes" to the government's composition were "necessary" to "open a new period", implying a change of PM was crucial to revive Macron's presidency.[32]
The crisis ended when Macron requested Élisabeth Borne to resign as PM, which she reluctantly did on 8 January 2024.[33] The following day, she was succeeded by 34-year-old Education Minister Gabriel Attal, who was the most popular minister in the outgoing cabinet.[34] He went on to form a minority government dominated by figures coming from the centre-right and from which Abdul-Malak and Beaune, leading figures of the government revolt over the immigration bill in late December 2023, were sacked.[35]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Le Président de la République a nommé Mme Elisabeth BORNE, Première ministre et l'a chargée de former un Gouvernement". elysee.fr (in French). 16 May 2022. Retrieved 31 January 2024.
- ^ "Macron faces 5 years of gridlock after stunning parliamentary defeat". Politico. 19 June 2022.
- ^ "Macron urges minority government to 'hang in there' after cabinet reshuffle". France 24. 4 July 2022.
- ^ "Report de la loi immigration : le gouvernement préfère " consulter "". Le Monde (in French). 4 August 2022.
- ^ "What's in the French government's new immigration bill?". Le Monde. 1 February 2023.
- ^ "French PM delays immigration bill due to lack of parliamentary majority". France 24. 26 April 2023.
- ^ "Emmanuel Macron's popularity plummets as his country burns". The Telegraph. 28 March 2023.
- ^ "European elections: the RN widens the gap with the majority". Le Figaro (in French). 17 October 2023.
- ^ "European elections: Jordan Bardella's list (RN) credited at 30%, far ahead of the majority, according to an Ifop survey". Marianne (in French). 15 December 2023.
- ^ "French Sénat approves immigration bill after making it harsher". Le Monde. 14 November 2023.
- ^ "Le projet de loi " immigration " adopté par la commission des lois de l'Assemblée nationale, dans une version remaniée". Le Monde (in French). 2 December 2023.
- ^ "French parliament rejects Macron's immigration bill in surprise vote". France 24. 11 December 2023.
- ^ "Vote de la motion de rejet : 1978, 1998, 2008… avant la loi Immigration, ces autres textes qui ont connu le même sort". Le Parisien (in French). 12 December 2023.
- ^ ""Darmanin est désavoué", "le début de la fin" : les réactions de l'opposition après le rejet du projet de loi immigration". TF1 Info (in French). 11 December 2023.
- ^ "France to send controversial immigration bill to special joint commission". France 24. 12 December 2023.
- ^ "Projet de loi immigration : "Un accord est en bonne voie" avec Les Républicains, mais la majorité s'inquiète pour la suite du quinquennat". France Info (in French). 17 December 2023.
- ^ "Loi Immigration : le gouvernement et les Républicains ont trouvé un accord sur la question des APL". Le Parisien (in French). 19 December 2023.
- ^ "Immigration bill: Borne announces State Medical Assistance reform early 2024". LCP (in French). 18 December 2023.
- ^ "French lawmakers strike tentative deal on toughened immigration law". France 24. 19 December 2023.
- ^ "Le Pen claims 'ideological victory' after French lawmakers approve contested immigration bill". Euractiv. 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Immigration law: "it's strategy", how the RN's maneuver put the majority on fire". Sud Ouest (in French). 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Immigration law: Macronist left-leaning ministers threaten to resign if the bill is too harsh". Le Figaro (in French). 19 December 2023.
- ^ "Loi immigration : Macron envisage de demander une deuxième délibération si la loi est adoptée grâce aux voix du RN". L'Obs (in French). 19 December 2023.
- ^ "French parliament adopts toughened immigration law backed by far right". France 24. 19 December 2023.
- ^ "French health minister quits as immigration law splits Macron's ruling party". France 24. 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Immigration law: Sylvie Retailleau offered her resignation, turned down by the Élysée and Matignon". Le Figaro. 21 December 2023.
- ^ "Macron's migration crisis deepens as PM admits bill is unconstitutional". Politico. 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Avant un probable remaniement, les ministres contestataires de l'aile gauche défendent leur place". Huffington Post (in French). 4 January 2024.
- ^ "Macron in crisis after immigration showdown". Politico. 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Champagne and luxury watches: the undeclared gifts from the pharmaceutical industry to the new Minister of Health". Mediapart (in French). 21 December 2023.
- ^ "Macron keeps France guessing as reshuffle rumors swirl". Politico. 5 January 2024.
- ^ "Remaniement : François Bayrou, qui plaide pour " un changement ", a un favori pour Matignon". Huffington Post (in French). 7 January 2024.
- ^ "French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne resigns". Euronews. 8 January 2024. Archived from the original on 8 January 2024. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
- ^ "Who is Gabriel Attal, the French PM who climbed the ranks in record time?". The Guardian. 9 January 2024. Archived from the original on 9 January 2024. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
- ^ "Attal government: macronism shifts to the right". Les Échos (in French). 11 January 2023. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
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