In 2023, immigration to France continued to increase significantly, mainly due to new arrivals of students, refugees and employees. According to annual estimates made public by the interior ministry on Thursday, January 25, more than 320,000 first-time residence permits were issued to non-European foreign nationals that year, up 1.4% since 2022.
"This is a record level. We're in a world where [population] movements have picked up again," commented Eric Jalon, head of the central administration in charge of foreign nationals in France, at a press conference. The past year, he said, "confirms the change in the structure of legal migrations." These figures will be under even closer scrutiny this year, as the French Constitutional Council's decision on the government's immigration law was released on the same day, in which it rejected large parts of the text.
With over 100,000 residence permits, students represent the largest category of legal migrants – for the second year running, ahead of family reunification, which accounted for 91,000 first-time permits, down 5% on the previous year. Economic immigration accounted for over 54,000 permits, up 5% on the year before. For the second year in a row, this category outstripped immigration for humanitarian reasons – which nevertheless rose by 15%, with almost 48,000 permits issued, mainly to refugees.
"It's the will of the president of the Republic to favor economic immigration [...] and to limit family immigration," Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister, said in a video posted to social media on Thursday. The most common nationalities holding these residence permits are Moroccans (36,240), Algerians (32,180) and Tunisians (22,400), with China in fourth place ahead of the United States.
Rising demand for asylum
"There are no surprises here," said Jean-Christophe Dumont, head of the international migration division at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). "These are significant figures, particularly for labor immigration, whose increase is both the result of changes to procedures implemented in 2021 [to facilitate administrative procedures and simplify the criteria for admitting foreign workers to France] and the result of students who are encouraged to switch to economic residence permits when jobs match their skills. They can even create start-ups."
The increase in the number of humanitarian permits is, meanwhile, the consequence of a rise in asylum applications. "We could reach a million applications in Europe this year," Jalon said, pointing out that Germany had registered over 350,000 applications, compared with 145,000 for France. According to the Interior Ministry, nearly 45% of asylum seekers have been granted protection by France. "This hasn't happened since the 1980s," pointed out Gérard Sadik of the Cimade migrant assistance association. "This shows that there is no abuse of the asylum procedure."
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