When judges veto key sections of a flagship government bill, it is unusual for a president or prime minister to see that as a victory. But that may be how Emmanuel Macron views last Thursday’s decision by France’s constitutional council to annul about a third of his highly controversial immigration bill.
Lacking a parliamentary majority, Mr Macron is playing a highly risky game of cat and mouse with the French right, amid polls that give Marine Le Pen’s radical right a 10-point lead ahead of June’s European elections. To get the bill through the national assembly, where the president’s centrist party depends on rightwing votes, it was toughened up with a raft of harsh and discriminatory amendments. Ms Le Pen hailed an ideological victory. Mr Macron seemingly relied on the courts to defend republican values against his own government’s legislation.
