Moroccan Father of Five Wins Court Fight to Stay in France

He was six when he left Morocco with his mother and brother. Twenty-seven years later, at 33, the French authorities wanted to send him back to a country where he has no known family ties. On September 9, the Yvelines prefecture ordered him to leave France immediately and barred him from returning for three years. The decision was overturned on October 13 by the Cergy-Pontoise administrative court.

On Bladi.net : Arriving in France at 10, this Moroccan man receives an OQTF after 21 years: judge blocks his removal

Born on July 4, 1993, the Moroccan national arrived in France in 1999. He completed all his schooling there before obtaining a residence card on reaching adulthood, valid from 2011 to 2021. His parents, sister and brother-in-law also live in France. It is there that he has built his entire life.

The judges paid particular attention to his family circumstances. The man is the father of five French children, aged 3 to 14, from two previous relationships with French women. He has them every other weekend and for half of the school holidays. The authorities do not dispute that he contributes to their upkeep and upbringing.

Since 2023, he has also been in a relationship with another French woman. When the prefecture decided to remove him, his partner was four and a half months pregnant. The couple had already formally acknowledged the unborn child in advance. In all, he has five French children, a sixth on the way and a family that has been settled in France for nearly three decades.

Five convictions were not enough to justify his removal

The authorities did, however, have serious grounds for their decision. Between 2017 and 2021, the Moroccan man was convicted five times. His criminal record includes a suspended one-year prison sentence in 2017 for handling stolen goods, followed by three prison sentences for theft committed with others between 2018 and 2019. The last conviction, in October 2021, was for driving after his licence had been revoked, an offence punished with a €400 fine.

The judges did not play down his criminal record. But they considered what his departure would mean in practice for his family. The court noted that he had been habitually resident in France for twenty-seven years, “for the most part lawfully,” and that all his family ties were in the country. Nothing in the case file established that he still had ties to Morocco, where he had lived only as a young child.

In its ruling of October 13, 2026, the court found that, despite the seriousness of the offences, the length of time he had been settled in France, the strength of his family life and the time elapsed since his last conviction made his removal disproportionate. It found a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to respect for private and family life.

On Bladi.net : Two prefectures sought to keep him out of France: this Moroccan father of two French children gets all decisions overturned

The consequences for the man are immediate. The order requiring him to leave France without delay and the three-year re-entry ban issued by the Yvelines prefect were overturned. The 45-day house arrest order imposed on the same day by the Val-d’Oise prefect was also annulled.

The competent prefecture now has two months to review his situation. Within 15 days of receiving notice of the ruling, it must issue him a temporary residence permit allowing him to work. The state must also pay him €1,000 toward his legal costs. The Moroccan man has thus escaped the removal measures he challenged, but will still have to await the administrative decision on his right to remain in France.