Autonomy allowance: Seine-Saint-Denis, Lot and Gironde will not enforce immigration law

Frontal opposition to the new immigration law. The three departments of Seine-Saint-Denis, Gironde and Lot announced on Wednesday that they would not implement the tightening of the conditions for the payment of individual autonomy allowance (APA) to foreigners, provided for by the immigration law adopted on Tuesday in the National Assembly.

“I will do everything possible to ensure that the Department becomes a Republican shield against national preferences. All residents of Seine-Saint-Denis deserve solidarity and humanity. Wherever they came from. We will continue to pay APA to legal aliens,” the website stated.

Earlier today, Lot’s department also said it would refuse to “apply national preferences to our elders.” Serge Rigal (DVG, former PS), president of the departmental council, proposes “to create a new universal allowance for autonomy that will grant Lotua exactly the same rights that would be excluded by this law.”

Section 19 of the immigration law, which was finally voted on Tuesday, “establishes the principle of national preference” for the APA, according to the department’s president. “This benefit is allocated and paid by the Department for the benefit of all residents of the Lot who need assistance in aging at home or in an institution,” the press release emphasizes.

Refusal to differentiate

“This is universal assistance, regardless of whether you are poor or rich, only if you live regularly in our territory and have a medically proven addiction,” he notes. “The adoption of this new law establishes a difference between French Lotois and non-Community foreigners (and) the latter will no longer be able to access this assistance unless they can justify two and a half years of contributions or five years of residence,” lamented the Lotoi presidency. which therefore refuses to make such a distinction.

The Gironde department said it was following the same course of action. The chairman of the council of the PS department, Jean-Luc Gleizes, assessed that “we are affecting a France that risks seeing the return of Vichy ideas, whitewashed.” “Here we find ourselves in a situation where we must no longer only guarantee universal rights, but must first and foremost fight to protect them from dangerous electoral, financial and/or xenophobic logic,” he said.

The controversial immigration law, passed by parliament by votes of the National Assembly, sets a five-year period for non-European foreigners in a legal position not working, and thirty months for others, before they can become eligible for benefits such as family benefits or personalized autonomy allowance (APA), a benefit paid to the elderly.

In an internal email addressed to agents of the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, Stéphane Troussel denounces “the law of fear, hatred and exclusion (…) that establishes a legal boundary between the French and foreigners in a legal situation.” Before clarifying: “This is why the Department will continue to pay benefits under the same conditions as today to all residents of Seine-Saint-Denis, regardless of their origin or nationality.”