To “conclude the constitutional debate” on deprivation of nationality for French convicted of terrorism, Francois Hollande Wednesday had an excuse and all found guilty. After the attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis, the head of state had called the right to “exceeded partisan boundaries” in the interest of French. Take a measure advocated by the right and the extreme right, “I did it because he had to have an act that can testify to what we wanted to do together to act against terrorism “. No foresee the risk of fracture of his majority, struck at the heart of its values. Four and a half months later, all come out losers in this revision failed: François Hollande, Manuel Valls, the majority and the opposition
12 February
A day after reworking it. adviser to the President turns his spoon in a cup of coffee, empty. “Should not lie, without lapse, it would be better, right?” asks the false friend of the head of state. Disoriented, like the rest of the left, the debate opened by François Hollande knowingly November 16 before the Congress of Versailles. Meanwhile, the Socialists have revamped the measure: it not only target binational, as was the head of state at the start – but now all the French, at the risk of creating stateless. And the executive maintains a glimmer of hope to accept the text by the Senate.
Like the IECC, the pact of responsibility or Macron law, forfeiture is out of the hat Presidential to the surprise. And, as usual, parliamentary debates to unavoidable delays offered to most every opportunity to tear under the eyes of the right, which however will eventually vote on the text.
” a debate arose. I understand, “ a euphemistic François Hollande last night on the set of TF1 and France 2 after the announcement of the reshuffle. The head of state tries to pedagogy – “It only concerns those who kill the French because they are French” – , gets tangled brushes speaking of a qualified majority of “two-thirds” when he needs three-fifths of the Parliament, explaining that it “not want the shuttle” parliamentary between Senate and Assembly “too long”.
“it is never wet on the disqualification it has never explained his approach, he left us all alone with the cluster bomb, “ says one Socialist Minesweeper. The President has yet tried to convince until the last minute. Short of arguments, he sent text messages to the Dutch parliament opposed the downfall just before the vote in the National Assembly: “You can not disown me.” This is far from the exercise of conviction on the bottom. “It’s still difficult to go all the time against his side,” admits an executive close to Holland. Especially a week later, the El Khomri law reforming the labor code sets fire to the left. Forfeiture disappear from the spotlight.
March 8
After the heartbreak of the Palais Bourbon, the mistigri happens to the Law Committee of the Senate. Elysée and Matignon hope the trap of national unity will close on the right. But the PS as the summit of the state, their eye on social anger swelling, it chooses to ignore the opposition of the Senate Republicans to statelessness. Yet it is their “total red rag” in the words of Senate President Gerard Larcher. The Luxembourg Palace is a “complicated house but the room compromises” is trying to reassure an adviser to Francois Hollande.
More honest, Jean-Jacques Urvoas says navigate view. “The Senate animal, we do not have the exact mapping” recognizes the justice minister privately. That night, he gets to his socialist comrades dinner of the Law Committee of the Assembly, of which he was the boss before replacing Christiane Taubira, partly by reason of disqualification. The troupe toured the owner, including mahogany room, and finds himself in the office of Minister of Justice. Soon affixed on constitutional reform, ask about the guests? “We all understand that if we removed the disqualification Urvoas not cry treason” says one of the guests.
March 9
while he has continued to defend the “oath of Versailles” since November Hollande, Manuel Valls warned the senators who would like “sacred presidential speech.” But this is the strategy and the shield of the Senate right: go back to the words of the head of state to target only binational “It is of extreme violence they. are our countrymen but it disappears behind the bazaar El Khomri law, “ Note the Socialist patrick mennucci, rapporteur of the constitutional bill to the Assembly, which urges – already – the head of the State to see the “national disunity.”
“It’s a nod over to the National Front, an avatar of more extreme rightward Republicans, but it’s sure to Press this seller is talking about the new failure of Holland, “ denounces his part tenor of the Assembly. Anyway, “we got away from the Congress since we said we could amend the text to the Assembly,” recognizes a ministerial adviser in charge of the review. Because the Senate wants to change the bill to turn and has no intention to vote a text line with that of Deputies. Privately, the president of the National Assembly, Claude Bartolone, now speaks of a “Failure text”.
The primary Republicans complicates the situation and false some of the predictions of the executive. While Nicolas Sarkozy expressed support to the forfeiture, even calling for the vote in December, Gerard Larcher and Philippe Bas Bruno Retailleau, the boss of senators LR are all around Francois Fillon which itself refuses measurement .
“you ask us to be equal, we will try to do as you” Philippe Bas promises to Manuel Valls. The Prime Minister smiled and made all honey. While it seems impossible on paper, the time is still officially in search of a compromise. Michel Mercier, former Keeper of the Seals centrist, moved by “the background and beliefs” and abroad to “Parliamentary obstetrics and political arithmetic,” Philippe Bas a completely rewritten Article 2 of the draft constitutional law that states clearly the prohibition of creating stateless persons. The road to Versailles seems crossed for good. At the Elysée and Matignon, “they do not know the end but they know that it ends badly,” predicted a Parisian socialist.
March 17
After leg round of the law Committee, Valls finds his harsh tone in the Chamber: “in the Assembly, we sought and constructed an agreement, a compromise. In the Senate, you did not try. With anyone. “ A right and left, the aisles shouting the assassination of bicameralism. ” We never changed line, we “ Bruno Retailleau response, citing Trotsky in his spiel.
As for the Assembly, the blurring of boundaries and political references is total. During the debate, as is quoted Hannah Arendt (abundantly), Pascal, Bonaparte, Michelet, Algerian writer Khateb Yacine or the Palestinian poet Fayad Ashraf, sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for his writings. “Please, enough suffering,” implore the patron of radicals senators left, Jacques Mézard, for which “the urgency is that this bill lapses” . As a score of his comrades PS, Senator of Paris bariza khiari tabled amendments deleting Article 2. At the podium, she rails against the forfeiture, a “measure cannibal , harmful and clivante [that] exhausts us [and] devouring us. It forces us to choose between loyalty and conviction while renouncing whatever that choice, efficiency and unity “. This is summed up in one phrase the dilemma of majority for four months battery. In the Senate, Valls seems defensive when in February before MPs, he played his all offensive. Shrinking from no dramatization to vote forfeiture. “At one time, he really believed that his head was on the chopping block, he would be released from Matignon if the text did not pass or if the majority does not reach three-fifths” tells a pillar of the majority. But just before the vote of senators Valls reframes itself acknowledges that the measure does not “will give a terrorist” to blow himself up.
“I seek the rally from the start provides the majority leader. My first mission is to implement what the president decided in good conscience. “ Not convinced at all but loyal to the end. With Holland since the attacks, “we are a block” he added the next day on Europe 1. Although the 109 PS senators reject the version of the right forfeiture covering only binational terrorists is passed. The path to a constitutional revision “will be difficult but hopefully not impossible,” pretends to believe Manuel Valls announced that the summit meetings to try to find an emergency exit.
in reality, after weeks of legal and political contortions to the Assembly Valls knows that his majority will not vote out the text of the Senate. And, for some time, the French native Barcelona became at 18 years is not totally impervious to the arguments that the forfeiture strikes many people. Everyone in France binational in his family. “It’s like the Chinese proverb of the idiot looks at the finger and not the moon that point, estimates the MP for Meurthe-et-Moselle Chaynesse Khirouni, Socialist and French-Algerian . It shows the Government all binational but it looks terrorists. “ In Dutch circles, some believe presidential and advise the President to let go to begin, finally, the gathering of the left. “Sometimes it is better to abandon that destroyed his camp. When one takes to the end, we do not necessarily wins after “ said a close adviser to Hollande. The proof, he argues, the right won the presidency in 2007 after the withdrawal of the CPE a year earlier.
March 20
During the weekend, the Abdeslam capture Salah in Brussels puts a token into the machine in Paris. To the right and left. Since the number one suspect of the attacks of 13 November is not binational, spokesperson of the PS Corinne Narassiguin sees evidence of the need to deprive all French nationality. “An arrest does not a summer of peace”, immediately warns Bruno Retailleau, feeling his troops waver. For the “swamp” the right questions increasingly on what to do. Rightly or wrongly, the constitutional revision is presented as additional protection for the French. “In the next attack, we will explain how we blocked the trick,” says a deputy LR. But the hierarchs of the party of Nicolas Sarkozy, there is no question of a gift of a Congress in Holland a year of presidential elections. Returning from a party of the Rose in the lands of Martine Aubry, Valls says his opposition to Congress a minimum. “A [in] a call on one item, you endorsed ridicule, argued near. The subject is not – the state of emergency – but the press invariably will say “all for it”. Replace the solemn as it will, at best, a partial failure, it is not desirable. “ In government, the solution of all send rounding begins to catch on. “Anyway, you write that one layer faces to the right, is irritated spokesman of the government, Stéphane Le Foll, in small groups. So it’s both articles or anything. If some do not want national unity they frankly say. “ In the Assembly, ” even when we found a majority for the entrenchment of a part of the program of extreme right “, breath another minister, not sorry to see the senators bury the measure.
March 22
Two bombings hit Brussels in the heart and revive the debate french just hours before the formal vote of the Senate. Faced with this “war” François Hollande wants to “ensure more than ever to unity at European and global level against terrorism.” But, he insists “the most essential unit is nationally.” and to praise the “effective and respectful legislative arrangements of public freedoms” in place since November in France. At the Elysee landing is prepared: the outcome of the review, this is not what matters to the country’s unity. “The fact that the President has shown his willingness to propose ideas that were not from his camp was extremely important peacekeeping virtues, do we believe in his entourage. You never know when and why things can tip after such a terrible shock [that the November attacks], it helped the French to stand firm together. The benefit was at that time. “ And only at this time, then?
Before attending the vote of senators Valls sings one last chorus of unit: “the French expect us to rally, they would not understand that we can not agree.” final Score: 317 votes for the review, 190 against. Farewell three-fifths of parliament, goodbye Versailles. Yet, right and left, everyone promises to “find ways” to lead the proceedings. The forfeiture is dead but nobody wants to be accused of killing her. “Whatever the result is a failed bet, a judge advisor Francois Hollande. Although there is a Congress, it will not happen to forget the French we lost all this time. “
From March 23 to 29
After four months of controversy, it is the last week of maneuvers. Everyone Fignole staging of abandonment, blaming the opposite camp. “We will not spend a week on that was the bad guy, storm MP Olivier Faure, one of the fiercest opponents of the forfeiture. In this little game, there will only be losers, the French take us zombies. “ At the Elysee Hollande gets Larcher, which requires four days to visit his flock, before holding talks with President Assembly, Claude Bartolone. The government lawyers, themselves, are concerned that Article 1 of the state of emergency fall by the wayside of the forfeiture. But “we will avoid the hot potato back in mouth full, stop the expenses,” recommended Bartolone to Holland. The right puts the majority cornered by announcing that it refuses a “mini-convention” (without decay) and she does not want the reform of the Supreme Judicial Council. “They are ready to vote not something they voted it six weeks ago. This is completely consistent for a party that says government “ tackle a ministerial adviser.
March 30
The presidents of both chambers remake moving to ‘Elysium. There is no filter. During the Council of Ministers, Hollande said he would talk, without delivering a verdict. “He did not want to talk to him before,” says a government official. At 12 h 16, after one hundred thirty-six days of controversy that have drained the country, Holland capitulated: “I decided to close the constitutional debate. But I will not deviate commitments that I made [...] to ensure the security of our country and to protect the French against terrorism. “
Laure Bretton