PARIS, Feb 7, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Prime Minister Francois Bayrou on Friday called for a national debate on immigration and what it means to be French, weeks after stirring controversy with comments about immigrants 'flooding' France.

Bayrou was responding to Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin who said Thursday that the constitution should be changed to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in France -- a right known as "jus soli" ("right of soil").

The prime minister said discussion on that topic alone would be "too narrow", calling instead for a wider debate about citizenship.

"It's obvious that this question has been fermenting for years," Bayrou told broadcaster RMC. 

"What does it mean to be French?" Bayrou said. "What rights does it give you? What duties does it demand of you? What advantages do you get? What do you commit to when you become a member of a national community?"

Bayrou said details of how to organise such a debate needed to be worked out but it should not be "postponed forever".

Late last month, Bayrou came under heavy criticism for remarks about a feeling of immigrants "flooding" France that he said was growing across the country.

The angry outcry from the leftist opposition, and rebukes from centrist allies, came after he said that immigration was "a positive" so long as it remained "proportionate" to the size of the population.

But his remarks also drew praise, from some conservative and far-right deputies.

The "jus soli" question has come into sharp focus in French politics recently because of mass immigration into Mayotte, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, from the neighbouring Comoros islands.

After parliament on Thursday voted to restrict that right in Mayotte, but not elsewhere, Darmanin said "jus soli" rights enshrined in the French constitution should come under review entirely.

"Today I would be in favour of French people deciding on this question during the 2027 presidential election, or in a referendum," Darmanin told the National Assembly.

In Mayotte and Guiana -- another French territory -- "thousands and thousands of people arrive with the idea that, if they have children there, they will be French", the minister said.

"All this needs to be reconsidered," he added.

Education Minister Elisabeth Borne, a former prime minister, rejected her colleague's initiative, saying "what French people expect from us are acts, and not references to constitutional change in the future".