While 261,000 migrants arrived in France in 2017, another 63,000 left, including students at the end of their studies, according to Insee. However, far-right pundit Eric Zemmour was wrong to claim during a recent debate with Jean-Luc Mélenchon there would be 2 million more migrants at the end of Emmanuel Macron's tenure at the Elysée. However before that there was a steady growth in non-EU migration levels. When looking at residency permits - issued to non-EU arrivals - the number issued fell by 20 percent in 2020 as consular services shut down due to the pandemic. But he was talking about étrangers in France – non-EU arrivals who require visas and residency permits – not the right of EU citizens to move between countries (although his platform is controversial for other reasons). When ex Brexit negotiator and now French presidential candidate Michel Barnier laid out his political platform of tough controls on immigration, it was seized upon by some in the anglophone world as a sign that he no longer believes in European freedom of movement. In political discourse, the word étrangers, often translated into English simply as foreigners, in the context of immigration frequently refers to people from outside the EU who do not benefit from EU freedom of movement, even if EU citizens count as étrangers in official statistics. READ ALSO Asylum seekers to crime – busting French immigration mythsįrance also distinguishes between EU and non-EU immigration in debates.
Indeed, it is important to distinguish between foreigners (those who live in France but do not have French nationality, even if they were born there), and immigrants (those born non-French and outside of France). The number also includes 2.5 million people who had acquired French nationality. France – unusually among European countries – does not require EU migrants to register for residency, so information on the number of residency permits issued does not give the whole story of immigration.Īccording to Insee’s estimate, 32.2 percent (or 2.2 million) of the 6.8 million immigrant total are Europeans, including both EU and non-EU migrants.
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