Dans sa décision du 6 juillet 2018, le Conseil Constitutionnel de la République française utilise les termes nouveaux de « méconnaissance du principe de fraternité » pour répondre à deux questions prioritaires de constitutionnalité (QPC) relatives à la liberté d’aider un étranger, dans un but humanitaire, sans considération de la régularité de son séjour sur le territoire national. C’est donner « des implications juridiques » à ce principe jusqu’alors peu utilisé par les juristes, mais souvent invoqué par le secteur associatif. Cette décision contient les objections formulées par les associations humanitaires, à la fois contre le législateur national et la gouvernance européenne. Ce sont donc plusieurs logiques qui s’affrontent de façon enchevêtrée, celles des droits subjectifs et des libertés fondamentales que promeut le secteur associatif, mais que garantissent également les institutions européennes et nationales, puis celles du droit objectif dirigé vers le bien commun et la sécurité que doivent défendre les États et l’Union européenne et dont bénéficient les habitants. Dans l’effervescence qui entoure la QPC-Fraternité, jaillissent les critiques formulées par les associations humanitaires contre une politique migratoire qui est commentée dans tous les sens. Puis, viennent les alarmes autour de la recherche d’un équilibre difficile.

Migration : Between European Governance and NGOs

ABSTRACT

In its decision of 6 July 2018, the Constitutional Council of the French Republic used a new term “ignorance of the principle of fraternity” in its reply to two constitutionality questions (QPC) concerning the freedom to aid foreigners on humanitarian grounds regardless of the legality of their stay in national territory. This, in turn, has “legal consequences” for that principle, which has thus far been rarely used by lawyers but frequently evoked by NGOs. The decision in question contains reservations formulated by humanitarian organisations, directed simultaneously against the national legislator and European governance. A number of logics is at play here that are contradictory in a complex way : subjective rights and fundamental freedoms championed by NGOs – which are, however, guaranteed also by European and national institutions – and the objective right focusing on the common good and security, which should be protected by states and the European Union, hence benefitting their inhabitants. In the fervour surrounding the constitutionality question on fraternity pale critical arguments formulated by humanitarian organisations that contest the widely discussed migration policy. Then the author alerts the reader about the need to look for a difficult balance. 

In its decision of 6 July 2018, the Constitutional Council of the French Republic used a new term “ignorance of the principle of fraternity” in its reply to two constitutionality questions (QPC) concerning the freedom to aid foreigners on humanitarian grounds regardless of the legality of their stay in national territory. This, in turn, has “legal consequences” for that principle, which has thus far been rarely used by lawyers but frequently evoked by NGOs. The decision in question contains reservations formulated by humanitarian organisations, directed simultaneously against the national legislator and European governance. A number of logics is at play here that are contradictory in a complex way : subjective rights and fundamental freedoms championed by NGOs – which are, however, guaranteed also by European and national institutions – and the objective right focusing on the common good and security, which should be protected by states and the European Union, hence benefitting their inhabitants. In the fervour surrounding the constitutionality question on fraternity pale critical arguments formulated by humanitarian organisations that contest the widely discussed migration policy. Then the author alerts the reader about the need to look for a difficult balance.