Immigration Law Sparks Outcry: Foreign Students Face New Hurdles in France

Increase in tuition fees for foreign students, introduction of a return deposit refunded at the end of their studies if they leave French territory... These measures included in the immigration law adopted, at the end of the joint committee, on December 19, are causing concern and indignation. "Students already face financial, family for some, and social difficulties. This text is the double penalty for us who already have trouble making our place," regrets Zacaria*, a Moroccan student in a Master’s program, who arrived in France in 2018 to pursue his higher education at the University of Bordeaux. "We are in a commodification of higher education and research, where we will only go looking for the students who have the means to come to France to study," analyzed the vice-president of France Universités Dean Lewis, on the microphone of Franceinfo the day after the adoption of the immigration law.

For Yanis Jaillet, general secretary of the Union Étudiante Bordeaux union, the introduction of this "return" deposit, the amount of which has not yet been specified, will have a "double impact". "Stigmatize foreign students on the one hand," he details, "then create a double selection with regard to the social level in which we evolve; the foreign students who will come to study in France will be those who have the means. It closes the door to many students." Zacaria, the Moroccan student in economics, also criticizes this measure. "You train us at a certain price and then you don’t want us to stay on the territory, what’s this nonsense?, he fumes. According to him, it is the establishment of an "adverse selection", where international students would be in competition with each other.

The increase in tuition fees - which would be multiplied by 16 - for foreign students is also the subject of strong criticism. "Tomorrow, students will be required to pay 2,770 euros per year instead of 170 euros, it is quite stigmatizing," Yanis Jaillet points out. "This noon, we met students who told us that if this text went through, they would not do their second year of master’s degree." While some establishments are already applying this differentiation, another stance is adopted in Bordeaux. In 2019, the University of Bordeaux preferred to exempt students from 83 countries from the increase in these fees. As for the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, it has decided that all non-EU students will pay the same registration fees as the French. If the Constitutional Council validates the text, foreign students will no longer be able to benefit from this exemption.

To read: France Leads OECD in Converting Foreign Students to Skilled Workers

Hundreds of people and associations have mobilized in Paris to "denounce the inhumanity" of the immigration law. Sixty or so presidents of schools and universities, including those of Bordeaux and Bordeaux Montaigne, have, in a press release, expressed their "firm and determined opposition" to this set of measures. According to Yanis Jaillet of the Union Étudiante Bordeaux, blockade actions for the 2024 school year are being considered. "We will do everything we can to make sure the text does not pass," they promise.

*First name changed