France Considers €1,500 Annual Fee for Residence Cards to Address Budget Deficit

"France is on the brink of a financial precipice: more than 3,200 billion euros of public debt with a negative net position of 1,875 billion at the end of 2023 and a deficit that will exceed 6% of GDP. We must also not forget the 4,284 billion off-balance sheet commitments at the end of 2023...," specifies Charles Prats in an op-ed published by Le Figaro. He will point out that "the budget debate on reducing public spending does not seem to be well underway and is heading towards limited measures. The classic recipes of the French administration remain, the crazy tax factory and the Olympic gold medal in fiscalism. The targets are always the same: the ’rich’ (it’s popular, we’re always someone’s rich...) and businesses (the evil ’rogue bosses’...)."

The national delegate of the Union of Rights for the Republic (UDR) proposes two simple ideas to vote on and above all to implement in order to deal with France’s indebtedness. The first: he believes that we could "invite Prime Minister Michel Barnier to show, against his administrations, useful creativity: to really make immigration contribute to the recovery of France’s public accounts." To support his argument, he explains: "contrary to a widely relayed propaganda, we have known since an enlightening report from the OECD that immigration has a budgetary cost for France between 0.52% and 0.84% of GDP. That is, a financial burden for public accounts of 14 to 24 billion euros per year for just over 5 million ’legal’ foreigners, an average of 3 to 5,000 euros per immigrant."

Consequently, "a fair application of tax justice must inspire a specific contribution for these people who benefit from what France offers them," says Prats, stressing that "foreigners already pay a sum of 225 euros for the issuance of their residence permit" and that "raising this tax, the principle of which already exists, to 1,500 euros per year and the payment of which would condition the regularity of the stay, would allow more than 5 billion euros to enter the budget of France each year." He will point out that this is a "proportionate amount, well below the actual cost of immigration. There is therefore no constitutional obstacle."

"And if the immigrant refuses to pay, he loses his right of residence and in any case will no longer be a burden on the nation. A win-win measure," he adds.

The second idea concerns the introduction of a 33% tax on international financial movements to countries refusing to issue consular laissez-passer to allow the removal of foreigners under deportation orders. "This is a particularly incentive tax measure to strengthen France’s tools in terms of implementation of immigration legislation," explains Prats. "Let’s bet that the diasporas would very quickly put pressure on the countries of origin so that they cooperate."