{"id":995565,"date":"2026-05-31T02:59:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/995565\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T02:59:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:59:29","slug":"french-minister-calls-for-immigration-hiatus-constitutional-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/995565\/","title":{"rendered":"French minister calls for immigration hiatus, constitutional changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>France&#8217;s Minister of Justice, G\u00e9rald Darmanin, has called for an unprecedented halt to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/article-896479\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">immigration<\/a>, proposing a three-year freeze on legal immigration to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/international\/article-897740\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">France<\/a> in an interview with the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Darmanin, who previously served as France&#8217;s interior minister for four years,\u00a0 said that France has &#8220;reached the limit of its absorption and integration capacity,&#8221; asserting that the country must radically dismantle its existing approach to border control and foreign residency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Darmanin also proposed changing the rules so that residence permits granted for employment purposes would no longer allow for family reunification.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">While acknowledging that foreign labor keeps vital sectors of the French economy afloat, the proposed restriction would bar foreign workers from legally bringing their spouses or children to France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Under current French law, immigration quotas exist purely as non-binding benchmarks. Darmanin wants to change the constitution to impose hard, mandatory caps on the influx of foreigners.<\/p>\n<p>When questioned about the intense pushback these proposals might face, Darmanin indicated he would welcome a national referendum on immigration to bypass<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-897558\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> political gridlock<\/a>. &#8220;I have never been afraid of the people\u2019s opinion,&#8221; he told the Journal.<\/p>\n<p>After alluding to the issue being at the center of next year&#8217;s French presidential election campaign, Darmanin said he will decide later whether to run in the 2027 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-897701\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">election<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">According to him, he will make the decision &#8220;solely based on the good of the country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Darmanin expressed support for former Prime Minister \u00c9douard Philippe, whom he described as &#8220;the candidate currently in the best position&#8221; to lead a unified national project, while lightly criticizing former prime minister Gabriel Attal&#8217;s candidacy as being representative of &#8220;progressive social democracy,&#8221; while maintaining that they have a respectful and sincere friendship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France&#8217;s Minister of Justice, G\u00e9rald Darmanin, has called for an unprecedented halt to immigration, proposing a three-year freeze&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":995566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[37213,2000,299,36,1234,40,72145],"class_list":["post-995565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-constitution","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-government","tag-immigration","tag-right-wing"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116666955334315999","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/995566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}