Digital Glitches Plague France’s Residence Permit System, Impacting Foreigners’ Lives

These malfunctions, reported repeatedly to public authorities, "hinder the access of foreign persons to the job market, aggravate their precariousness and heavily penalize associations and companies that support or employ them," deplore these associations in an op-ed published Thursday. They point out that "this public service platform, mandatory since 2021 for 83% of residence permits, was supposed to simplify all residence permit applications (first issuance or renewal), but "its massive and recurrent malfunctions have made it a tool for manufacturing precariousness." These associations claim that for three years they have been reporting bugs on the platform that result in depriving foreign persons of the guarantee of a private, family and professional life.

But the malfunctions persist and generate enormous difficulties: broken life paths, people prevented from working, companies deprived of employees, associations exhausting themselves in dysfunctional procedures and prefectural services struggling to unblock situations. An intolerable situation in the eyes of a teleconsultant who works with the National Agency for Secure Documents (ANTS), on which Anef depends. "There is no more direct contact (with applicants, Editor’s note) since the digitalization," he says to France 3. According to him, in addition to the problems encountered by applicants when creating their accounts, for the simple fact of changing an email address, one must wait at least three weeks. "Some people wait more than six months".

For now, foreigners are struggling to obtain or renew a residence permit, even if the current permit is about to expire. Worse, "extension certificates are not necessarily generated right away," specifies this employee, who requested anonymity. This unfortunate situation leads to the interruption of Social Security rights, but also the risk of being prohibited from continuing one’s work, as the residence permit is mandatory to be able to work legally in France.