a measure long advocated by the right wing.

It also contains measures to strengthen the anti-terrorism arsenal, with a psychiatric component, and will go to the Senate (upper house) for review scheduled for May 20.

The bill, introduced by Charles Rodwell (Renaissance, the presidential party) and supported by the government, was approved by 345 MPs ranging from the center to the National Rally (far right), against 177 MPs on the left.

Before the formal vote on the text, the deputies reinstated one of its key provisions, which had been removed during the debates in mid-April in a particularly heated atmosphere.

It extends to up to seven months (210 days) the administrative detention of foreigners subject to a removal order from the territory, who have been sentenced in the past to at least three years in prison for offenses against persons, and who represent a "real, current and particularly serious" threat to public order.

Last summer, a similar extension provision was struck down by the Constitutional Council, which deemed it disproportionate.

This prompted elected officials to reintroduce it, with a more restrictive wording that takes into account the observations of the experts. According to Mr. Rodwell, it will only affect "a few dozen people per year."

Driven by former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau (LR, right), this measure emerged after the 2024 murder of the Philippine student, when the suspect, a Moroccan, under an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF), had just been released from detention.

"She lived in my constituency and a year and a half ago, I made a commitment to her family" to bring forward a "cross-party" text that would find "a fair balance between protecting public freedoms and strengthening the security of the French people," said Charles Rodwell, elected representative for Yvelines.

Undocumented immigrants can be detained in an administrative detention center (CRA) pending deportation if there is a risk they will abscond. Currently, the maximum detention period is 90 days, or 180 days for those convicted of terrorism.

For this last category, the text also raises this threshold to 210 days.

More than 40,000 people were detained in detention centers in 2024, according to the associations working there. These associations denounce the living conditions and the ineffective extension of detention periods, with deportations occurring primarily in the first few weeks, they say.

"This is a communication law," which validates "the principle of prison without trial," denounced the socialist Céline Hervieu.

Terrorist threat

The text also specifically addresses the terrorist threat.

He is putting the creation of a "psychiatric examination order" in the hands of the prefect, to force certain people to submit to it in order to prevent terrorist acts.

They will have to have shown adherence to "theories inciting or glorifying acts of terrorism", and have had "actions likely to be (...) linked to mental disorders".

Following this examination, the prefect may order compulsory hospitalization.

This will allow us to intervene "before the act is committed", said Eric Martineau (MoDem, centre).

Green Party MP Léa Balage El Mariky denounced a "major drift" transforming "psychiatrists into internal security agents" and "care into control".

The proposed law also provides for the creation of a "terrorist security detention", allowing people to be placed under certain conditions in a care center after a prison sentence, as for certain other crimes.

Charles Rodwell hopes to see these "very concrete" measures definitively adopted before the end of parliamentary work this summer.

AFP