Moroccan PhD Holder Faces Deportation After 25 Years in France Due to New Work Permit Rule

Versatile cleaning agent in Grenoble, Mohamed has been confronted with new regulations that require foreign workers to have a "work permit" to renew their residence permit. "I was told: ’Either you have this approval and we will issue you the receipt, or you don’t have it and we can’t give you anything,’" Mohamed confides to France Info.

On August 30, 2022, the fifty-year-old had filed a request for a 10-year resident card with the Isère prefecture, under a Franco-Moroccan bilateral agreement signed in 1987. But he will only be entitled to a one-year title. "It made me angry," he details, adding that he complained to the prefecture, which promised to check if it was an error. It is while waiting for a response from the public service that last December, he learned that he was no longer regularized.

"I was stunned. Since 2015, I have been regularized without a work permit, without any constraint, no problem, no difficulty. I am always up to date with the French state services. Normally, someone with seniority, we can’t put obstacles in their way. The prefecture should make a gesture," reacted the holder of a DEA in English studies.

Unfortunately, all his attempts to discuss his case with the prefecture have been in vain. "They told me: ’It’s the regulations’." Finding himself without a job and without income, Mohamed now lives in precariousness. "For four months, I have had no income, I’m struggling, I’m suffering daily. Without a work permit, I can’t work." For its part, the CGT of undocumented workers in Grenoble is calling on the prefecture to regularize the situation of these foreigners on a case-by-case basis. Without success.