France Deports Over 4,600 Foreigners in 2023, Maghrebians Top List

In total, 4,686 people were expelled from France in 2023 to the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa and Central Europe, according to Gérald Darmanin, the French Minister of the Interior, specifying that these were foreigners who had been released from an "administrative detention center" and were subject to "ministerial expulsion orders". The people expelled due to their registration in the File of Signals for the Prevention of Radicalization to Terrorist Character (FSPRT), which allows the monitoring of radical Islamists, are not included in this list.

On Thursday, Gérald Darmanin "welcomed this first assessment" during a meeting held at the Ministry of the Interior, between the prefects and himself to "begin to apply" the immigration law. According to his entourage, he asked them "to accelerate further in this matter, in particular thanks to the contributions of the immigration law as soon as it is promulgated".

Adopted in Parliament on Tuesday, December 19, the immigration law resulting from the joint committee (CMP) aims to "control immigration" and "improve integration": "provide new guarantees for the benefit of foreigners who follow a quality integration path", "accelerate procedures to remove from the national territory those who commit serious offenses [...] ", reform "the examination of asylum applications" and simplify "litigation relating to the entry, stay and removal of foreigners". The text notably provides for the expulsion of delinquent foreigners in a regular situation, even those who arrived in France before the age of 13 or have a French spouse. For now, the Constitutional Council has not yet examined this text, which takes up demands from the far right.