Digital Residence Permit System in France Faces Legal Challenge Over Barriers to Immigrants

Fédération des acteurs de la solidarité (FAS), Aurore, Coallia, Emmaüs Solidarité, Forum Réfugiés, France terre d’asile, JRS France (Jesuit Refugee Service), Cimade, Groupe SOS Solidarités, Secours Catholique – Caritas France. These associations have, in a press release, denounced the "Kafkaesque malfunctions of the digital platform for residence permit applications, repeatedly reported to the public authorities, (which) hinder the access of foreign persons to the labor market, aggravate their precariousness and heavily penalize the associations and companies that support or employ them." 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 creating precariousness."

"For three years, the associations have reported the bugs of the platform which have the consequence of depriving foreign persons of the guarantee of a private, family and professional life," recalls the same source, noting that it is "impossible to carry out several procedures simultaneously, impossible to renew one’s extension of instruction certificate (API), impossible to report a change of residence or situation..." The difficulties caused by these malfunctions are enormous: broken life paths, people prevented from working, companies deprived of employees, associations exhausted by dysfunctional procedures and prefectural services struggling to unblock situations. To support their statements, the ten associations rely on a survey by the Fédération des acteurs de la solidarité (FAS) among its member associations and partners, which has extensively documented these findings.

According to this survey, the majority of associations have found that the people they support have lost their rights to France Travail and for 45% their employment rights (contract termination, work ban...). Based on these findings, these ten associations have taken steps. They have held several meetings with the Ministry of the Interior, then sent a letter to the minister on December 17, 2024 to alert him and propose a series of corrective measures. On March 27, they filed an appeal with the Council of State for "faulty negligence" and ordered the State to apply the law on the Digital Administration of Foreigners in France (ANEF).

"The malfunctions of the ANEF impact every day people protected under asylum and who are therefore confronted with brutal interruptions in their path to employment or in their efforts to access housing. This appeal therefore aims to put an end to this obstacle, detrimental to the persons concerned but also to society as a whole, because we all have an interest in refugees integrating well and quickly into our country," explains Sylvestre Wozniak, general director - Forum réfugiés.

"What strikes me is that despite France’s welcome, most of them have a residence permit, their life remains difficult and precarious because tested by dematerialized administrative procedures, synonymous with dehumanized. What I admire is their tenacity to see each procedure through to the end. They drag us, the volunteers with them, not to give up, step by step, to obtain what is legitimate," said Agnès from the administrative office of JRS France.