Moroccan man wins court order to bring wife and three children to France
A Moroccan man living in Vaucluse had been denied family reunification because his income was deemed insufficient. But the prefecture had overlooked several sources of income and an improvement in his employment situation. A court has now overturned the refusal and ordered it to authorize his wife and their three children to join him.
A permanent employment contract, additional work and an 80 m² apartment to house his family. This 44-year-old Moroccan man thought he had met the requirements to bring his wife and their three children to France. The Vaucluse prefecture decided otherwise. Two years after the refusal, the Nîmes Administrative Court has ruled in his favor, with a clear order to the authorities: authorize family reunification within one month.
On Bladi.net : Because of a miscalculation of 14.53 euros, this Moroccan man waited nearly four years to bring his wife over
It all came down to an income calculation. When he filed his application on 14 September 2023, the Moroccan man held a residence permit valid until May 2027. But the prefecture deemed his resources too low to support a family of five. It calculated his average monthly net income at 1,092 euros, below the threshold of 1,485.62 euros, and rejected his application in October 2024.
But those figures did not tell the whole story. In particular, the authorities had failed to include daily allowances paid by the Agricultural Social Mutual Fund (MSA). And above all, the father’s employment situation had changed in the meantime.
Additional income the prefecture had not taken into account
On 30 September 2024, a few days before the refusal, his employer had signed an amendment to his permanent employment contract providing for a gross monthly pay increase of 464.10 euros. The Moroccan man was also running a business, for which he had declared revenue of 28,587 euros in 2023.
The judges considered all these factors in their ruling of 2 October 2026. They also noted that since March 2023, the man had been renting an 80 m² home, large enough to accommodate his wife and their three children.
In the judges’ view, the prefecture could not rely solely on the income figures originally calculated without taking into account their “significant and lasting” improvement. The refusal was overturned on the grounds of a manifest error of assessment.
On Bladi.net : Her apartment appears unoccupied, Lille prefecture blocks her Moroccan wife from joining him
This time, the ruling goes further than simply ordering a fresh review, as in another family reunification case decided in favor of a Moroccan man. The court directly orders the prefect to approve the application within one month of notification of the ruling, unless the man’s circumstances change.
The state must also pay the father 1,000 euros toward his legal costs. After filing his application in September 2023 and being turned down a year later, he has now secured a ruling that paves the way for his wife and their three children to join him.
