A “Migration Crisis”? The Myths and Realities of France’s Immigration Figures

The expression “refugee crisis” or “migrant crisis,” which has rapidly gained ground in political and media discourse since 2015, has been widely called into question by researchers specialized in the subject: some decry the predictable nature of the situation (Blanchard and Rodier 2016), while others prefer to speak of a “crisis of migration policies” (Bontemps and Makaremi 2018), a “reception crisis” or even a “crisis of European solidarity” (Beauchemin 2016). [1] However, is this use of the term “crisis” justified in the light of immigration figures in France? Has there been a significant increase not only in the number of asylum applications but, above all, in the granting of refugee status? And who are the other foreign nationals who manage to obtain their first residency permit?

Different sources can be used to study immigration figures in France: administrative sources (such as those of the French interior ministry, the French Office for Immigration and Integration [Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration, OFII], the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons [Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides, OFPRA] or the French National Court of Asylum [Cour Nationale du Droit d’Asile, CNDA]), as well as sources generated by the national census of the population, whose statistics are produced by INSEE, France’s national statistics office. This article makes use of three administrative sources: activity reports by OFII, regular reports to the French parliament published under the titles Les Étrangers en France (“Foreigners in France”) [2] and Essentiel de l’Immigration (“Key Immigration Data”) and produced by the Department of Statistics, Studies and Documentation of the French interior ministry. Our study, in line with other works (Cornuau and Dunezat 2008; d’Albis and Boubtane 2015), seeks to analyze recent immigration policy by examining the justifications for successful residency applications, and by situating this policy within the broader context of French immigration since the early 2000s. Approaching the subject from this angle enables us to deconstruct what is implied when the expression “migration crisis” is used—namely the recent arrival en masse of exiled individuals who together exert “migratory pressure” on France.

From this point of view, the number of “Reception and Integration Contracts” (RAICs, see Inset 1) allows us to put into perspective what media coverage suggests. This scheme—a pillar of France’s migration policy since the early 2000s, tested locally from 2003 and managed by the French Office for Immigration and Integration (OFII)—which was initially intended for foreigners who are newcomers to France, was made standard procedure throughout the country by law on July 24, 2006. In 2007, the number of contracts signed totaled 101,217. Ten years later, in 2017, this number had barely increased and stood at 103,184 (OFII 2018). [3]

As we can see, despite extensive media and political focus on the “migration crisis,” symbolized by the figure of the “Calais migrant”—individuals seeking asylum who are blocked at the Franco-British border—the immigration situation in France seems to be stable and often invisibilized.

In this article, we shall examine the recent period dubbed a “migration crisis” from two perspectives: first, with regard to the number of asylum applications made in France; and second, with regard to the number of people who have obtained a first residency permit since 2007, and the administrative categories to which they belong. Ultimately, these analyses will reveal levels of immigration that have remained relatively stable in numerical terms and whose primary justification (in terms of successful residency applications) is still family-related.

“Migration crisis?” What crisis?

While the number of asylum requests peaked for the first time in 1992 with the reception of many applicants from the former Yugoslavia, fleeing the war that began in 1991 (672,000 applications were made in the 15 countries that originally made up the European Union), this figure reached 627,000 in 2014 and a “record” 1.2 million in 2015 (Eurostat 2016).

We will examine the asylum figures in France from 2014 onwards, in order to put developments since 2015—which stands out as something of a milestone year—into perspective. Unlike other European countries, France has not experienced a massive increase in asylum applications: while in Italy the number of first-time asylum seekers increased from 64,000 in 2014 to 126,000 in 2017, and in Germany it rose from 202,700 in 2014 to 441,800 in 2015, before falling back down to 198,300 in 2017, [7] in France (Figure 1), 59,313 people filed a first asylum application in 2014, compared with 93,230 in 2017. More specifically, first applications increased by 30.8% between 2014 and 2015, by 7.8% between 2015 and 2016, and by 15.3% between 2016 and 2017. [8]

Notwithstanding the “migration crisis” invoked in media coverage, the success rate for the granting of refugee status remains very low in France. In 2016, refugee status was granted to 26,499 people (including 9,667 subsidiary protections [9]) and the recognition rate—which takes into account decisions made at second instance by the National Court of Asylum (CNDA)—was 37.6%. [10] In 2017, refugee status was granted to 31,964 people. The protection rate is 27% at first instance at OFPRA and ultimately stands at 36% when CNDA decisions are taken into account, [11] This is slightly more than one third of applications. These averages also vary considerably according to the nationality of the applicants. In 2017, nationals from Sri Lanka, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Russia were the most numerous to obtain refugee status. As for subsidiary protection, this was mainly granted to Afghans, Syrians, Albanians, and Malians (OFPRA 2018).

Foreigners who obtain a first residency permit in France: stable and invisible immigration

The residency permits issued to signatories of the “newcomers” Reception and Integration Contract (RAIC), which has become the Republican Integration Contract (RIC), are indicative of the type of immigration that currently prevails in France. The OFII, which manages the scheme, classifies the number of signatories according to different reasons: family, economic, asylum, and others. [12] An analysis of the evolution of these figures since 2007 shows that the family reason remains predominant despite the “asylum crisis.”

In 2007, the asylum motive accounted for only 7% of all RAIC signatories, compared with 8% for the work motive and 78% for the family motive, almost half of which (47%) concerned the spouses of French nationals (General Secretariat of the Interministerial Committee for Immigration Control 2008). In 2015, the family reason remained by far the most important, accounting for 68% compared to 13% for the asylum reason and 8% for the economic reason (OFII 2016). The family reason is itself broken down into different subcategories: family reunification, spouses of French nationals, parents of French children, personal and family ties, members of refugee families. [13] The most numerous are once again the spouses of French nationals (38,077). They represent 50.5% of family-related justifications. [14] In sum, the majority of RAIC signatories arrived in France or obtained a residency permit for family reasons and are, for a large proportion of them, spouses of French people.

In 2017, although the “asylum” motive increased to 26.9%, the family motive—which accounts for 59% of all signatories—remains predominant (OFII 2018).

A comparison of the nationalities of RAIC signatories between 2007 and 2017 is also revealing of the central share of this ordinary immigration, even though, it should be remembered, the scheme does not concern people from the European Union. In 2007 (Figure 3), 43.1% of RAIC signatories came from the Maghreb, followed by Turkey (6.3%). People from sub-Saharan Africa, in particular Cameroon, the two Congos, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal, accounted for 14.8% of RAIC signatories; people from Russia and the former USSR made up 4.4% of the total, and from China 3.2% (General Secretariat of the Interministerial Committee for Immigration Control 2008).

In 2017 (Figure 4), the largest group numerically continues to be people from countries of the Maghreb—particularly Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia—as they represented 29.5% of signatories. [15] This is followed by Afghans (5.4%), Sudanese (4.1%) and Syrians (4%), which is clearly an effect of the policy of dismantling the camps in Calais and Paris and placement in Reception and Orientation Centres (Babels 2018; Gourdeau 2018a). Thus, nationals from Afghanistan moved from eighteenth to fourth place among the signatories of the contract, and Sudanese from fifteenth to fifth. Next come Turks, Senegalese, Ivorians, nationals of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chinese, Malians and Russians, who, as in 2007, are the usual nationalities of origin of immigrants in France (OFII 2018).

Although the number of refugees is increasing among Republican Integration Contract signatories, the media, political, scientific and even militant focus on “migrants,” “exiled individuals,” and “refugees” (a category that implies having obtained asylum, which is far from being the majority of cases) has several blind spots, such as that of making undocumented migrants invisible (Plein Droit 2018). It also results in leaving in the shadows a particular form of immigration whose justification for obtaining a residency permit is often family-related and which constitutes the majority of ordinary, contemporary migration to France, [16] even if categories can be porous, and very often those rejected for asylum after several years of living in France seek to obtain a residency permit on other grounds. [17] This type of immigration is far removed from the image of “migratory pressure” invoked by the government to justify its policy of “non‑reception”—with the somewhat self-fulfilling consequence that asylum seekers and migrants in transit (who are most often not accommodated and thus forced to occupy themselves as best they can in the public space) are made altogether more visible.

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