France Considers Revoking Residence Permits for Parents of Delinquent Youths

In addition to the usual grounds for withdrawal of residence permits, non-European foreigners who would be negligent parents could lose their residence permit. Recently, the prefect of Bas-Rhin organized a press conference during which "he had brandished the threat of withdrawing the residence permits" of the parents of about 80 young people arrested in Strasbourg, after committing urban violence between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. In a letter he sent to the parents, he warned them that he could re-examine their situations and withdraw their residence permits. Summoned to the prefecture, they had to justify that they were supporting their children and that they were not negligent parents.

The client’s relations with the state service have become "tinged with fear," Gabriella Carraud, the lawyer of one of the mothers summoned by the prefecture in this case, told the media Rue89. She holds a 10-year residence permit and her child is French, but she fears becoming undocumented overnight. Her arrested child was released, but is not being prosecuted by the juvenile court. The prefecture officials made the child’s mother out to be a negligent mother and let her know that her file had been sent up to the prefect and that a decision would be made. She does not know what kind of decision. Since then, she has been haunted by the fear of having her residence permit withdrawn. She risks finding herself in an irregular situation in France.

Her lawyer "doubts" however that "the administrative court will validate the approach" if it were to be taken. "Only a criminal conviction of the children could motivate the prefect to actually re-examine the residence permits of the parents," she believes.