This Moroccan woman believed her residence permit application was still pending: the courts tell her it had been refused since 2025

Born in 1995, the Moroccan national held a multi-year “private and family life” residence permit authorizing her to work, valid until December 9, 2024. She requested its renewal as early as November 25, 2024, through the ANEF platform.

The administration made no explicit decision and subsequently continued issuing her certificates extending the processing period. In August 2026, nearly twenty-one months after her initial application, the Moroccan woman finally brought the matter before the Cergy-Pontoise Administrative Court to compel the prefect of Hauts-de-Seine to make a decision.

On Bladi.net : The prefecture blocks her residence permit for eleven months: this Moroccan woman makes it pay €1,100

But the order issued on September 2 led to an unexpected result. Under the law, the administration’s silence for four months following an application for a residence permit constitutes an implicit refusal. The Moroccan woman’s permit application had therefore legally been refused since March 25, 2025.

The certificates do not change anything about the refusal

The most surprising point concerns the documents issued after that date. The court specified that a receipt or a certificate extending the processing period issued after the four-month deadline does not eliminate the implicit refusal that has already arisen.

In other words, the prefecture could continue giving her documents certifying that the application was still being processed even though, legally, her application was already considered rejected. An administrative mechanism that the courts had already identified in the case of a Moroccan man whose receipts continued to be renewed despite an implicit refusal of residence.

The Moroccan woman merely asked the judge to order the prefecture to make a decision. However, since that decision had legally existed since March 2025, the court could not require the prefect to rule again under the procedure she had chosen.

On Bladi.net : The prefecture refuses his residence permit without telling him why: this Moroccan national receives 1,500 euros

Her application was therefore rejected in full. The court did not, however, rule on the merits of the refusal to renew the permit itself: it merely found that an implicit decision already existed and that it prevented the emergency measure requested.

To challenge her refusal of residence, the Moroccan woman will therefore have to contest that implicit decision through another legal avenue. According to the judge, the certificates issued to her after March 2025 never called the existence of that refusal into question.