Eric Zemmour assures him: six months before the presidential election, immigration is “the fundamental question that torments the French”. However, this only comes in sixth place in the concerns of respondents in this recent Ipsos-Sopra Steria survey. Like the polemicist, who maintains the suspense over his candidacy, the right-wing and far-right contenders at the Elysee Palace engage in a bidding up of more or less feasible proposals in order to reduce the number of foreigners entering France . From Marine Le Pen to Valérie Pécresse, all are making more statements, with lots of numbers and statistics. Franceinfo has verified five of these immigration claims.
On the number of arrivals in France
“At the end of Emmanuel Macron’s term, there will be 2 million more immigrants.”
Eric ZemmourSeptember 23, during his debate on BFMTV with Jean-Luc Mélenchon
Here is how the far-right polemicist does his calculation: he adds up the immigration figures for the year 2019. The “275,000 legal entries”, i.e. the number of residence permits issued for the first time, plus the “36,000” asylum applications accepted on “130,000”, more “10 to 15%” from “90,000 rejected”, more “40,000 to 50,000” unaccompanied minors. He thus counts “between 350 and 400,000” immigrants who arrived in France in one year. Multiplied by five years of five years, that makes 2 million.
The various figures put forward by Eric Zemmour are close to reality, but his method of calculation, and therefore his result, are erroneous. By adding together residence permits, asylum applications and unaccompanied minors, it counts the same people several times. Because immigrants who entered France with the provisional status of asylum seekers will obtain their residence permit a few years later, recalls Convergences Migrations Institute, attached to the CNRS.
If the essayist willingly adds, he forgets to subtract. Because immigrants don’t just enter France, they also leave. In 2017, 261,000 immigrants arrived in France, but 63,000 left, according to INSEE. The migratory balance was therefore 198,000 immigrants. The figures for immigrant exits from the territory are not yet available for the following years. It is therefore impossible to know how many immigrants entered France during the five-year term of Emmanuel Macron.
By applying Eric Zemmour’s (unscientific) method, that is to say by multiplying this migratory balance of 198,000 immigrants in 2017, at the start of the five-year term, by five years, i.e. the duration of Emmanuel Macron’s mandate , the total is no longer 2 million, but 990,000.
Eric Zemmour further insists that these figures do not take into account illegal immigration. It’s wrong. “INSEE lists all immigrants, whatever their administrative situation”, explains Jérôme Lê, head of the studies and statistics unit on immigration at INSEE, in The Parisian.
On the population living in low-cost housing
“Immigrant households are twice as often renters of low-cost housing as the others.”
Marine Le PenSeptember 23, at a press conference
This argument is supposed to support the proposal of the candidate of the National Assembly for the presidential election to establish a “national priority” in access to social housing.
If we take his statement literally, Marine Le Pen is even (a little) below the truth. In 2017, 13% of non-immigrant households rented low-cost housing. This proportion reached 31% among immigrant households, according to INSEE statistics, taken from the population census and compiled by the Ministry of the Interior.
“The over-representation of immigrants in public housing housing may be linked to their lower income, but also to the larger size of their household”, explained the Ministry of the Interior. “The length of time spent in France also has an influence on the home ownership of immigrants, underlined the services of Beauvau, summarizing an INSEE analysis. Immigrant households from Italy and Spain, who have been in France for longer than those from the Maghreb or Turkey, are therefore more homeowners. ”
It should also be borne in mind that immigrant households are almost ten times less numerous than non-immigrant households. According to the latest survey on housing conditions in France, published by INSEE in 2017, based on 2013 data, there were a total of 2.7 million immigrant households for 25.3 million non-immigrant households in France. In 2013, among these, 34% of immigrant households were tenants in the social housing against 15% of non-immigrant households.
These 34% of immigrant households living in low-cost housing therefore represented only 918,000 households in France. The 15% of non-immigrant households renting the social housing accounted for 3,795,000 households. Immigrant households thus amounted to barely 19.5% of all households living in social housing in 2013, against just over 80.5% for non-immigrant households.
On the profile of immigrants
“I regret that we only import bac-5 into our country and that we export all our bac + 10.”
Jordan Bardella, acting president of the RNSeptember 28, on France Inter
Marine Le Pen’s replacement at the head of the National Rally caricatures the situation. In 2020, the proportion of non-graduates or people with only a patent was certainly much higher among immigrants (37.8%) than among non-immigrants (18.9%), according to INSEE figures. Similarly, holders of a CAP or BEP were proportionally less numerous among immigrants (19.5%) than among non-immigrants (30%). The baccalaureate and Bac +2 were also less represented. But the proportion of people with a diploma above Bac +2 was slightly higher among immigrants (21.7%) than among non-immigrants (20.1%).
Jordan Bardella is also alarmed by a French “brain drain”. This has certainly been accentuated, but it remains moderate, as evidenced by the figures cited in this publication of the Directorate General of the Treasury dating from January. In 2019, the United Nations counted around two million people born in France living abroad. A figure up 52% in 20 years and 89% in 40 years. However, France’s emigration rate remains one of the lowest within the OECD. In 2015-2016, 2.7% of French people aged 15 and over lived in another OECD country. This statistic was twice as high in the UK or Switzerland and even six times as high in Ireland or Portugal.
The French emigrants are, it is true, on average more educated than those who remained in France. The gap between the two populations has even widened over the past fifteen years. Thus, more than half of 25-64 year olds living abroad (58%) have a higher education qualification. But for all that, all these expatriates are not “Bac +10”, to use the words of Jordan Bardella. They can just as easily have a BTS (Bac +2), a license (Bac +3), a master’s (Bac +5) or a doctorate (Bac +8). And finally, only 6% of people born in France and graduated from higher education lived in another OECD country in 2015-2016.
On rejected asylum seekers
“Before the Covid-19 crisis, we had 135,000 asylum seekers, the majority of whom are unsuccessful; 95% of the unsuccessful remain on French soil.”
Valérie Pécresse, candidate for the nomination of the rightSeptember 12, on BFMTV
The origin of this statistic, brandished for years by figures on the right as well as on the far right, is unclear. It is likely that this percentage comes from this report of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) dating from 2013. Based on figures from 2011 and 2012, “more than 52,000 asylum seekers” arrived in France every year. In 2011, 39,000 of them were rejected. The Igas estimated the number of departures at 2,200. The Igas concluded that 37,000 rejected applicants would remain in the territory each year. That is to say nearly 95% of them. But this is an estimate made in the conditional.
a summary judgment of the Court of Auditors going back to 2015 suggests a comparable statistic. But once again in the conditional. “More than 96% of unsuccessful people remain in France, taking into account, on the one hand, the very low execution rate of OQTFs [obligations de quitter le territoire français] and, on the other hand, the procedures and remedies initiated by asylum seekers “, is it written. A foreigner whose file has been rejected by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra) can indeed apply to the National Court of Asylum.
Problem: the General Directorate for Foreigners in France (DGEF), cited by the Court of Auditors to justify this percentage, responded to the Factoscope, fact-checking project of the Tours journalism school, which she “could not confirm or deny these figures”, because we “cannot calculate the number of people refused asylum each year in France since they have no legal status”.
The Ministry of the Interior certainly provides annual figures foreigners in an irregular situation who have left the territory, whether voluntarily or by force. But these data do not make it possible to know whether these are the rejected asylum seekers of the current year. It is therefore impossible to know with precision what proportion of rejected asylum seekers remain in France.
On obtaining French nationality
“It is no longer possible for us to have nationality automatically, it is no longer possible for us to have residence permits automatically.”
Eric Ciotti, deputy LR candidate for the nomination of the right,August 26, on BFMTV
THE’acquisition of nationality is not, however, automatic. People born in France to foreign parents acquire French nationality when they come of age. On condition that they reside in France and that they have lived there for at least 5 years since the age of 11, continuously or not. In 1993, the Pasqua law had replaced this provision with a “manifestation of will” of the applicant. In 1998, the left returned to power had canceled this modification, recalls theAFP.
Minors born in France to foreign parents, parents or grandparents, spouses, brothers or sisters of French, can acquire French nationality, if their file is completed. the required conditions. Foreigners of legal age residing legally in France can submit an application for naturalization by decree. Naturalization is granted abroad under certain conditions and is done by decision of the public authority. There is therefore nothing automatic about it.
Obtaining residence permits is not automatic either. Visitor, retiree, worker, family … Whatever one of the nine residence permits desired, the applicant must complete a form, provide a series of documents and supporting documents. a legal framework set out in the Code for the entry and stay of foreigners and the right to asylum. Even in the event of a favorable opinion from the residence permit committee, the prefect may decide to refuse to issue a residence permit.
In 2020, 84,864 people acquired French nationality, according to the Interior Ministry cited by INSEE. Regarding residence permits, 870,798 visas were requested in 2020, whether for first requests or for renewals. The authorities refused to issue 168,228 and 71,317 residence permits were granted. Thus 18.2% of cases processed – these may have been submitted the previous year, explain the services of Place Beauvau – were refused.