France Orders Moroccan Student With SNCF Apprenticeship to Leave — Court Overturns Decision
A 27-year-old Moroccan who has lived in France since 2017 is pursuing IT training while working as an apprentice at SNCF. Yet the Val-d’Oise prefecture has ordered him to leave the country. A court in Cergy-Pontoise has just overturned the decision.
At SNCF, he is preparing for a future in IT. But on October 3, 2025, the student received a refusal to renew his residence permit, together with an order to leave France within thirty days. He had applied to extend his “student” residence card on June 19.
His journey began on October 7, 2017, when he entered France on a student visa. In 2018, he enrolled in a bachelor’s degree in computer science. It took him two years to complete the first year, and the same amount of time to complete the second. He then passed his third year in 2024, through a work-study program as a designer-developer at Mega services.
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In September 2024, he began a master’s degree in data engineering. He stopped three months later after failing to find a company to take him on as an apprentice. In April 2025, he got back on track with an 18-month IT project management program. This time, he secured an apprenticeship contract at SNCF.
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Before the Cergy-Pontoise administrative court, the Moroccan argued that his training was genuine, that he was making progress and that he had sufficient resources. The Val-d’Oise prefect filed no response to his application.
The judges reviewed his case step by step. His first years had taken a long time, but he had passed them. He had successfully completed his third year. His new program was linked to a work-study job. On October 13, 2026, they found that he was pursuing his studies “seriously” and had sufficient means of support, according to the administrative court ruling.
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The refusal of a residence permit and the OQTF were overturned. The court ordered the prefect to issue him a “student” residence card within two months of notification of the ruling. The state must also pay him 1,000 euros in legal costs.
