Immigration, Gabriel Attal
Labour immigration and residence permits: Admit fewer: points-based system, reduced family reunification
Direction of change: creation of a scheme, compared with current law.
The lever. Conditions for issuing residence permits, labour immigration, regularisations, quotas voted by Parliament. Direction rule: ↑ more open labour immigration.
« Notre ligne est claire, ce que nous voulons, c’est accueillir moins pour accueillir mieux, privilégier l’immigration de travail au détriment d’autres types d’immigration comme le regroupement familial, qui doit être mieux encadré et qui doit donc diminuer. Ce que nous voulons, c’est la préférence travail, où l’on accueille les compétences, les talents dont nous avons besoin sur la base d’un système à points comme au Canada, fondé sur des critères simples, une offre d’emploi stable, un logement, parler français, connaître nos valeurs et les respecter. »1Translation by the editorsOur line is clear: what we want is to admit fewer in order to admit better, to favour labour immigration over other types of immigration such as family reunification, which must be better regulated and must therefore decrease. What we want is a work preference, where we admit the skills and talents we need on the basis of a points-based system as in Canada, founded on simple criteria: a stable job offer, housing, speaking French, knowing our values and respecting them.
Encoding
No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.
Costing
Announced by the candidate
not announced
The programme does not cost this measure.
Published costings
none
No external costing of this position recorded to date.
Our calculation
lever that cannot be costed
Lever with no coefficient in the cost schedule: the position is compared, not costed.
Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule
Current law. Act no. 2024-42 of 26 January 2024: exceptional admission to residence for foreign nationals working in a shortage occupation (CESEDA, art. L. 435-4). It requires three years of residence and 12 months of work out of 24, and the scheme is open until 31 December 2026. In 2025, 384,230 first residence permits were issued (+11%), of which 51,190 for economic reasons (-13%), and 28,610 foreign nationals were regularised (-10%).
Horizon. Not applicable.
Limits. A static costing makes no sense: the budgetary effect runs through employment, contributions and benefits, that is, through dynamic effects. Statistics diverge: about 377,000 first permits according to the ministry's note, 384,230 according to AFP (scope with or without British nationals). Expiry date of 31 December 2026 read in the instruction of 5 February 2024: without an extension (not searched for), the « métiers en tension » (shortage occupations) scheme expires before 2027, which changes the reference law in 2032.
- AFP via Le Petit Journal, « Immigration : plus de titres de séjour et moins de régularisations en France en 2025 » (chiffres du ministère de l'Intérieur publiés le 27 janvier 2026), 2026-01-27: « Premiers titres 2025 : 384 230 (376 364 hors Britanniques), +11 % ; motif économique : 51 190, -13 % ; régularisations : 28 610, -10 % »
- Instruction du 5 février 2024 relative à l'admission exceptionnelle au séjour par le travail dans les métiers en tension (texte reproduit par le GISTI, page 2), 2024-02-05: « La présente instruction a pour objet de présenter les orientations générales pour la mise en ceuvre du nouvel article L. 435-4 du CESEDA. Ces dispositions législatives, applicables jusqu'au 31 décembre 2026, ouvrent une voie d'accès à la régularisation spécifique […] pourra aboutir à la délivrance d'une carte de séjour temporaire portant la mention « travailleur temporaire » ou « salarié » d'une durée d'un an »
How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.
- Programme, chantier capital Frontières. Read the programme page.
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