PARIS — France’s National Assembly on Thursday adopted a text put forward by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally for the first time in history, raising questions about the risk of normalizing the far-right party.
In an eye-opening session, 185 lawmakers voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution that urges the government to repeal a 1968 agreement with Algiers that facilitates Algerian immigration to France. A total of 184 lawmakers, mainly from the left, voted against.
The resolution pushed by the National Rally passed by the narrow margin thanks to the decisive support of some right-wing and centrist lawmakers, but also due to many from President Emmanuel Macron’s party not showing up for the vote, for unclear reasons.
Even if the text has no legal effect, the vote marks a major symbolic victory for Le Pen’s party, which has so far been isolated by centrist and left-wing lawmakers due to the so-called cordon sanitaire, a self-imposed unwritten rule preventing them from working with the far right.
“For the first time, a text presented by the National Rally […] has been adopted,” Le Pen said shortly after the vote, as she again urged Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to repeal the accord.
The National Rally managed to gain the unprecedented victory by picking a battle in which it garners support beyond the party’s ranks.
The text was also backed by 17 lawmakers of Horizons, the center-right party of former prime minister Edouard Philippe.
In the past, even the head of Macron’s party, Renaissance, Gabriel Attal, called for repealing the agreement, amid increasing tensions between France and Algeria. But Attal was absent during Thursday’s vote and only 30 out of 92 EPR lawmakers voted against the text.
Left-wing opposition groups were quick to attack Attal and his party, accusing them of allowing Le Pen’s party to pass a text they consider racist — while also letting the National Rally score the symbolic win.
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