This future law on asylum and immigration, scheduled for the first half of 2023, should introduce a series of measures to make the “obligations to leave French territory” (OQTF) more effective, a subject that has occupied public debate since murder of a 12-year-old girl, Lola, killed in mid-October by an Algerian national under the influence of an OQTF.
“We are now going to register all the OQTFs in the file of wanted persons” to “be able to see that the person is leaving (…) and thus count all the departures of foreigners”, explained to the daily Le Monde the Minister of the Interior. Gerald Darmanin. The government is criticized, particularly on the far right, for the low rate of implementation of these measures.
France issues approximately 120,000 OQTFs per year but executes less than 10%.
“First, there are nearly 50% of OQTFs which are the subject of appeals which suspend them”, defended the minister, reaffirming that he wanted to “greatly simplify the procedures” by going “from twelve to four categories of appeal” possible.
The Minister of the Interior also wants to put an end to the “public order reservations” which “prevent the removal of people who arrived before 13 years” in France, by letting the judges “decide” on their fate, underlined Gérald Darmanin.
– 29th law –
The bill also provides for several reforms in the area of asylum, including the generalization of the single judge at the National Court for the Right of Asylum (CNDA), where a collegial formation will only meet for “very difficult cases”.
The rejection of an asylum application at first instance at the Ofpra (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons) “will be worth OQTF with the possibility of appeal within fifteen days”, detailed Mr. Darmanin.
To justify this new law on asylum and immigration, the 29th since 1980, the minister invoked insecurity, a week after Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed his desire to “toughen the rules” at a time when “half “acts of delinquency are the work of foreigners in Paris, according to the president.
“And this is true in the ten largest metropolises,” continued Mr. Darmanin.
“If I had to summarize, I would say that we must now be mean to the mean and nice to the good. We are also going to propose the automatic renewal of the multi-year titles of those who pose no problem, who have no record judicial”, he continued, estimating at several hundred thousand the number of people concerned.
“There is both a notion of firmness (and) a real balance with initiatives to be taken to facilitate regularizations”, boasted the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, in the same interview.
Within the framework of the bill, which must be preceded by a parliamentary debate, the government emphasizes professional integration.
“And there is progress to be made since in the first half of the year, when the unemployment rate was at 7.5%, that of immigrant workers was at 13%. Work must once again become a factor of integration and emancipation “, said Olivier Dussopt.
The latter, for example, wants to put an end – under conditions – to the waiting period which prevents asylum seekers from working during their first six months in France.
He also pleaded for a “job in tension” residence permit, to recruit in sectors with a shortage of manpower.
“This component will remain to be defined”, however conceded to AFP the Ministry of the Interior.
But the measure is already causing an outcry on the right and the far right: the LR deputy for Lot Aurélien Pradié announced that he would not vote for a text involving “massive regularization”, while the leader of the deputies RN, Marine Le Pen, also sees it as “a campaign to regularize illegal immigrants”.
On this theme, the government wants to allow a worker in an irregular situation to request his own regularization, “without going through the employer”, who can “find an interest” in keeping him in hiding, according to Olivier Dussopt.
In this respect, agreed Gérald Darmanin, “we are perhaps not giving enough residence permits”.
