France Tightens Monitoring of Legal Foreign Residents for Potential Deportation

Identifying foreigners in regular status who have committed public order disturbances with a view to taking certain sanctions against them that can lead to deportations. This is the new finding of the Loire-Atlantique prefecture recorded in a service note, reports Ouest France, explaining that it requires the national police, as well as all other security services, to establish a list recording the offenses committed by foreigners in regular status. A form listing the details of the foreigner in regular status must be filled out. Its title refers to "a procedure for refusing, not renewing or withdrawing a French residence permit".

The document must provide information on the nature of the residence permit held by the foreigner arrested, also contain a chapter titled "judicial facts", which compiles the person’s criminal record, including the reason for their arrest and the judicial consequences taken against them. The completed document will be sent by the police. They can attach custody reports and copies of residence permits to the Loire-Atlantique prefecture. After receiving this shuttle form, the Directorate of Migration and Integration (DMI) will decide on the measures to be taken against the offending foreigner, which may range from degradation of the residence permit, its withdrawal, or cancellation of a regularization request up to the decision of Obligation to Leave French Territory (OQTF), assignment to residence, or placement in an administrative detention center.

The offending foreigner can contest the withdrawal of their residence permit within two months before the administrative court. Appeals can lead to the suspension of OQTFs. In total, 37 forms targeting foreigners in regular status have been received by the state service as part of the implementation of this measure. Among them, five that can lead to sanctions. The prefecture mentions serious acts, such as domestic violence or extortion, without however revealing the exact criteria it takes into account to revise the residence file of the offenders.

While the Loire-Atlantique prefecture explains that this new approach is in line with the Immigration Act 2024, and allows to have a general view of foreigners in regular status, and not only those who are wanted, the Nantes lawyer Yann Chaumette expresses concerns. According to him, "many things" are hidden behind the motive "disturbance of public order". In his opinion, foreigners in regular status have already been deported for cases of traffic offenses. The list of reasons preventing an expulsion has shrunk from 9 points between 2021 and 2024 to only 1 point now, the lawyer recalls. He also fears that foreigners in regular status will slip into a kind of "registration".