Tag: President Emmanuel Macron

A very important immigration reform bill that French President Emmanuel Macron‘s government wanted to pass did not pass.

Politicians from different sides voted on Monday to say no to the bill.

The government says the bill is meant to manage immigration and help migrants blend in better.

The people on the left think the rules are too strict, and the people on the right think the rules are not strict enough.

The new law would allow the government to send away migrants who have been in prison for five years or more. It would also make it harder for migrants to bring their family to France.

The new law is not as strict as the one suggested by the Senate, which is mostly controlled by the right. That law would have made it much harder for illegal immigrants to get healthcare and benefits.

Mr Macron’s tough Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, strongly backed the proposed law. He said on X (formerly Twitter) before the vote that if the bill passed, the government could send “very dangerous” foreign nationals, like drug dealers, out of the country.

However, he was not able to persuade opposing members of Parliament to support him. Instead, different groups within the opposition voted for a motion to say no to the bill. Members of the National Rally team up with members of France Unbowed, the Republicans, and smaller parties to defeat the government.

Before the vote, Arthur Delaporte, a member of Parliament for the centre-left Socialist party, said his party would vote against the bill because he thought it was unfair, shocking, and a danger to freedom.

Mr Macron’s party did not win the most seats in parliament in the June 2022 elections. From that time on, the government has often struggled to get enough votes in parliament.

The Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne is not allowed to use a special power to pass laws without a vote in order to approve this draft.

Since the riots in France started a week ago, according to Zartoshte Bakhtiari, he hasn’t gotten more than three hours of sleep each night.

He works as the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Marne, which is located east of Paris in one of the poorest regions of France.

By night, he serves as an early warning system for police battling the riots there by patrolling the streets with a dozen staff members and municipal council members until 4:00 or 5:00.

He tells me, “Within days, we [were] in hell.”

On Tuesday, he’ll head to the Élysée Palace with more than 200 other mayors to discuss the crisis with French President Emmanuel Macron.

His request is for “more toughness” from the state, and permission for the local city police to use drones to monitor activity in the town.

“What’s happening now is the result of years of weakness from politicians, and decisions that have not been taken,” he says.

“It’s a problem of authority because these [rioters] don’t fear justice. [They] may go to court, but they come back home a few hours after trial simply because we don’t have enough places in jail in this district of Paris. We cannot support this kind of weakness from the state.”

Just outside his office in the town hall is the charred wall of the local city police station.

“They jumped over this wall at 1am with a jerrycan of petrol,” Mayor Bakhtiari explains, gesturing to the fleet of seven charred squad cars, their ashen skeletons lined up beneath the blackened façade.

But the building was shared with the public housing department, tasked with finding homes for 2,300 local people.

Inside, the office is a carbonised shell of melted plastic and ash. Not all the paper files were digitised. The details of many of those most desperate for housing here have been wiped from the records by the fire.

The head of the housing department, Laurence Tendron Brunet, stands among the burnt ruins in tears.

“I’m so sad,” she says. “We’re going to rebuild, we’re going to start again. But right now there are people who are so desperate for housing. I know about half of them – when they call, I recognise their voices. They’re not files, they’re human beings.”

Mayor Bakhtiari says the arsonists were caught on a video surveillance camera, and from the footage they appear to be teenagers, perhaps 14-16 years old.

“I find it hard to understand that it’s children who are destroying things,” Laurence says, “because at that age, your parents should be responsible for you.”

Round the back of the building, overlooking the car park with its fleet of charred police vehicles, we find a neighbour who filmed the fire on his mobile phone, and agreed to speak to us anonymously.

“Typical,” he says, when he hears about the suspected age of the arsonists. “Organised thugs launch kids of 11 or 13 into the event, telling them: ‘you’ll never go to prison, so go ahead.’ That’s the norm here; they send the young kids [to] the front line. It’s a gang tactic.”

The worst-hit part of Neuilly-sur-Marne is an area called Les Fauvettes. The public library, shops and a supermarket have all been torched here. Les Fauvettes is also home to many of the rioters themselves.

Aicha, a 23-year-old teaching assistant, lives there too. She says she understands the initial anger that sparked the violence – even if she thinks it has since turned into looting and destruction.

“They’re fed up,” she says. “It always falls on the same people. If you’re black or Arab, a gun is pulled and shots fired without thinking. When it’s a white person, they think twice before shooting or even giving a fine.”

But back in his office at the town hall, Mayor Bakhtiari rejects accusations that there’s a problem with the French police.

“Absolutely not, I cannot hear that kind of argument,” he insists. “Maybe we have people in the police who are racist, but we cannot say the police [itself] is racist. The police behave very well here in France.”

But the actions of individual officers, like the one now facing a charge of voluntary homicide for shooting 17-year-old Nahel M. last week, are only half the story.

The other half is about the divisions these events expose within France.

A public collection for the family of that officer topped a million euros on Monday – dwarfing the amount collected for the family of Nahel.

More on this story

Following the deadly police shooting of a teen, France has been rocked by yet another night of riots, with violence escalating around Europe.

Several French cities have experienced rioting that resulted in bus stops being completely demolished, houses and cars being set on fire, and an increasing number of arrests.

After three nights of protests, at least 667 individuals have been detained, according to Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister.

There are reports in local media that violence has spread to the Belgian capital of Brussels.

Yesterday several authorities havecurfews in place, stopped public transport services earlier than usual and banned the sale of flammable products.

Earlier, the government said it was set to deploy 40,000 police officers and gendarmes to try and calm the chaos.

Demonstrations first broke out on Tuesday after a 17-year-old boy named only as Nahel M was shot dead during a traffic stop in the suburb of Nanterre.

President Emmanuel Macron said the attacks on officers and burning of buildings and vehicles were ‘unjustifiable’.

Nahel’s devastated mother Mounia said: ‘I lost a 17-year-old, I was alone with him, and they took my baby away from me. He was still a child, he needed his mother.’

The police officer who killed the boy was detained and has now been charged with voluntary homicide.

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Speaking of Macron, the French President came under heavy criticism for attending an Elton John concert last night while the country was engulfed by rioting and chaos.

French President Emmanuel Macron will hold another emergency crisis meeting today following another night of unrest, AFP reports.

Good morning and welcome to our continued coverage of the riots in France as the country experiences a third successive night of looting and unrest following the killing of 17-year-old Nahel M by police.

if you’re just joining us, here’s a summary of last night’s key events:

• Over 40,000 officers have been deployed across France quell further clashes with protesters, with around 5,000 incidents reproted in Paris alone.
• Over 180 arrests were made last night, bringing the total to 667.
• The officer involved in the shooting of Nahel M has been arrested and is facing preliminary charges of voluntary homicide. His lawyer has issued an apology to the teenager’s family and says the officer is ‘devastated’.
• Widespread looting has been reported throughout the country. In Paris, the central shopping street of Rue de Rivoli has been ransacked, whereas looters in Roubaix, near the Belgian border, targeted a mini supermarket before setting fire to it.
• A library in Marseille has been burned and vandalised, local officials claim, and police used tear gas to disperse up to 150 people who tried to set up barricades.
• Local media has reported the unrest hs spread to Brussels, the capital of Belgium.
• A memorial march for Nahel attracted thousands of protestors and was attended by Nahel mother, Mounia. In a TV interview, Mounia said she didn’t blame the whole police force for what happened to her son- just the officer who fired the lethal shot.

Paris has increased security as the nation prepares for a major decision on the legitimacy of disputed changes to France’s pension system.

Before the verdict, which might raise France’s retirement age from 62 to 64, the Constitutional Council in Paris, which is similar to the US Supreme Court, has been barricaded.

An authority on French constitutional law told CNN that this is the first time police had protected a court. Laureline Fontaine remarked, “As far back as I can remember, I’ve never seen images like this before.”

Sweeping protests have paralyzed major services across the country this year over French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal, a move that has also riled opposition lawmakers and unions. Uncollected garbage has mounted in the streets of Paris.

There are several possible outcomes to Friday’s ruling. If the law is green-lit, it will go into effect in September. The first retirees will have to wait an additional three months for their state pensions. With regular, incremental increases, by 2030 the retirement age will have reached 64.

There could also be a partial strike down of the law. If only part of it is deemed unconstitutional, the court can opt to pass the remainder of the legislation into law. This would likely still be seen as a win for Macron, who would then be able to offer dialogue to trade unions.

If the court finds that the law in unconstitutional, it cannot be enacted. This is unlikely and would be a political earthquake for Macron, whose government pushed through the legislation without a direct vote by using special constitutional powers.

The council will also decide Friday whether to allow a referendum on the law, called for by the opposition.

Macron has argued that the reforms are essential to rein in public finances, and has been standing firm, this week saying “the country must continue to move forward.”

Thursday marked the 12th nationwide day of protests against the proposals. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets but the interior ministry’s turnout figure – 380,000 – is nearly 200,000 less than the previous round of protests.

Some protesters in Paris forced their way into the headquarters of luxury giant LVMH, with one union leader telling CNN, “if Macron wants to find money to finance the pension system, he should come here to find it.”

The protests have for the most part been peaceful but they have also seen violent clashes.

The higher pension age will still keep France below the norm in Europe and in many other developed economies, where the age at which full pension benefits apply is 65 and is increasingly moving towards 67.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, the retirement age is between 66 and 67, depending on the year you were born. Current legislation envisages a further rise from 67 to 68 in Britain between 2044 and 2046 (although the timing of this increase is being reviewed and could change).

State pensions in France are also more generous than elsewhere. At nearly 14% of GDP in 2018, the country’s spending on state pensions is larger than in most other countries, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.