March 25, 2025: President Emmanuel Macron faces growing political pressure after the French Senate introduced significant amendments to his government’s immigration reform bill, shifting the proposal sharply to the right. The revised text includes stricter residency requirements, limits on social benefits for migrants, and new pathways for deportation—moves that have sparked criticism from human rights groups and divisions within Macron’s centrist coalition.

The bill’s original version, introduced by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, aimed to streamline asylum procedures while introducing regularization mechanisms for undocumented workers in labor-shortage sectors. That version was a balanced approach, blending enforcement with limited integration measures. The Senate’s amendments, however, removed many of the integration provisions and added more authoritarian enforcement tools, including mandatory language requirements and reduced access to housing assistance for recent arrivals.

The right-wing Les Républicains bloc, which holds considerable sway in the Senate, pushed for the revisions and demanded further concessions before the bill returned to the National Assembly. Several lawmakers have framed the immigration debate as a referendum on national identity and border control amid rising support for Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party.

Tensions are rising within Macron’s own camp. Centrist and left-leaning MPs have warned that the bill’s current version could undermine the president’s humanist platform and alienate key supporters ahead of the 2027 presidential race. Trade unions, civil society organizations, and legal experts have condemned the Senate-approved provisions as discriminatory and potentially unconstitutional.

Macron’s administration now faces a legislative challenge: either water down the Senate’s version in committee negotiations—risking a standoff with the right—or proceed with the more challenging version and absorb the political fallout from moderate voters and civil liberties groups.

If no consensus is reached in the joint parliamentary committee, the government could invoke Article 49.3 of the French Constitution to push the law through without a full vote, a tactic that previously triggered nationwide protests during pension reform. The immigration bill’s outcome will signal the government’s broader posture on law-and-order policy ahead of the European Parliament elections 2024.