Immigrant activists and their allies in France have gained some rare breathing room. On Thursday the Constitutional Council, the body tasked with checking the constitutionality of bills passed in parliament, threw out some of the most draconian measures in President Emmanuel Macron’s latest immigration law. The legislation was the main event in domestic politics for much of last fall, only being approved in parliament thanks to the help of the right-wing opposition parties. The support of the far-right Rassemblement National was decisive for the adoption of the government’s bill, with Marine Le Pen claiming an “ideological victory” on her fetish subject.

Her party had good reason to celebrate. The legislation in its full form checked off many items on the nationalist wish list, marking a dramatic acceleration in the assault on foreigners in France. Among the parts that the Constitution Council threw out this week were an attack on the principle of birthright citizenship that ended automatic citizenship rights for children born to non-nationals on French soil, restrictions on family regroupment (regularized immigrants being joined by relatives), the privileging of citizens for access to social rights and benefits, the creation of a specific offense for extralegal presence in France, and the holding of annual parliamentary votes on visa deliverance quotas — in effect an immigration budget ceiling, well-crafted for the far right. The decision likewise blocks the attempt to bar undocumented immigrants from emergency housing support, or a new requirement that non–European Union students pay a large financial guarantee, which would only be returned upon their leaving France or securing a job contract.

Thursday’s decision does not officially kill the new law. Although it can be sent back in its entirety for reworking by parliament, Macron’s government has opted to promulgate the legislation in its more truncated form. Its surviving elements include the expansion of deportation conditions, a lengthening of the time for holding foreigners in special detention prisons, and new visa criteria demanding “respect for republican values.”