Because of a miscalculation of 14.53 euros, this Moroccan man waited nearly four years to bring his wife over

The Moroccan man submitted his application on 21 November 2022 to the Loir-et-Cher prefecture. He wished to enable his wife, who had remained abroad, to join him legally in France under the family reunification procedure.

More than a year later, on 19 December 2023, the prefect rejected his application. The administration considered that the applicant did not have stable and sufficient resources to meet the needs of a family of two.

The Moroccan man challenged this conclusion. On 6 March 2024, he brought the matter before the Orléans administrative court, arguing that the prefecture had used neither the correct period nor the correct reference amount to assess his income.

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In its judgment issued on 14 August 2026, the court reviewed the calculations. During the twelve months preceding his application, the Moroccan man received an average monthly net income of 1,304.26 euros.

The prefecture had compared this amount with the minimum wage applicable on 1 October 2022. However, the law requires using the monthly average of the Smic over the same twelve-month period used to calculate the applicant’s income.

This average amounted to 1,289.73 euros. The Moroccan man therefore earned 14.53 euros more than the required threshold, not less, as the administration had determined.

The prefecture could not use his later income

The judges recalled that, for a family of two or three people, resources are considered sufficient when they reach the monthly average of the Smic during the twelve months preceding the submission of the application.

The prefecture may take into account an improvement that occurred after this period in order to grant family reunification to a person who was initially below the threshold. However, it may not use a subsequent decline to refuse the application when income was sufficient during the statutory period.

In this case, the Moroccan man’s monthly income of 1,304.26 euros therefore met the financial requirement. The prefect could neither apply the Smic for a single month nor rely unfavorably on the subsequent development of his situation.

The court consequently overturned the refusal issued in December 2023. This decision comes nearly three years and nine months after the application was submitted to bring his wife over.

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The court did not, however, directly grant family reunification. The judges noted that they did not have the information needed to establish that the Moroccan man met the other conditions, particularly those relating to housing and family circumstances.

The prefect of Loir-et-Cher will therefore have to review the entire application and issue a new decision within two months. The court refused to attach a financial penalty to this obligation.

The state must nevertheless pay the Moroccan man 1,500 euros to cover the costs incurred in the proceedings. A new unfavorable decision theoretically remains possible, but the administration may no longer invoke insufficient resources on the basis of the calculation that was overturned.

This case adds to that of a Moroccan man whose family reunification application was refused by the prefecture solely because his marriage had been celebrated in Morocco. In both cases, the court did not automatically authorize the wife’s arrival, but removed an administrative obstacle deemed unlawful.

For this Moroccan man from Loir-et-Cher, nearly four years were thus needed to demonstrate that his salary was not below the required minimum. It exceeded it by 14.53 euros.