France - Overview





Key Findings

Best practice (100% score)

Fields of application for anti-discrimination law
Political liberties
Dual nationality

Favourable
Rights associated with family reunion
Implementation policies for political participation
Anti-discrimination law

Unfavourable
Acquisition conditions for family reunion and long term residence

Critically unfavourable (0% score)
Eligibility for labour market access
Electoral rights for political participation

Change since 2004
Less favourable eligibility and conditions for acquisition of long-term residence
Less favourable family reunion on all dimensions
Less favourable eligibility and conditions for acquisition of nationality
More favourable anti-discrimination on all dimensions

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Overview
Permanent immigration to France has grown consistently during the past decade, increasingly from the Maghreb and Francophone Africa. France continues to be the EU's largest country of asylum, despite recent declines. There has been a new emphasis on combating discrimination in the wake of the autumn 2005 banlieue riots. A job applicant with a North African name is twice as likely to be rejected as a similar candidate with a traditional French name(1). President Chirac rejected the use of affirmative action measures, but new  resident Sarkozy has signaled his interest. The 24 July 2006 Code on entry and stay of foreigners and right of asylum (CESEDA) served as a landmark piece of legislation to codify the law around the government's concept of "selective immigration".

On the eve of the founding of a Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and co-Development by the new President, MIPEX finds anti-discrimination policies to score the highest of the six areas of integration policy, boosted by the new law transposing the EC Directive on Racial Equality. However, family reunion, long-term residence, political participation and nationality all score on or around halfway to best practice. Moreover, legally resident third-country nationals (hereafter ‘migrants') in France must pass the worst conditions for family reunion and long-term residence of the 28 MIPEX countries. The CESEDA has been responsible for drops in France's score on family reunion, long-term residence, and access to nationality.

1 Observatory of Discriminations - Adia Barometer (November 2006)

The collection and use of statistics on integration
In a country historically hostile to classifying people by race or ethnicity, an August 2006 INED study found that people of diverse origins were less concerned with ‘statistics of origins' based on ancestry or geography than with those based on race or ethnic group, particularly their use in personnel files for companies or administration. Migrants and their direct descendents were twice as uncomfortable when asked to label themselves by their race or ethnic group and this was particularly true for ‘Arabs and Berbers'. ‘Whites' and ‘blacks' were more willing to classify themselves in those terms. See Simon and Clément, How should the diverse origins of people living in France be described?, Population and Societies (INED, No. 425, July-August 2006) 



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Integration Policy Timeline

25/10/2005
45% of participants in CSA survey favoured a local right to vote for residents of 10 years

27/10/2005
Riots in the banlieues raised questions of discrimination against second-generation youth. Most requested expulsions were dropped because the accused were minors with strong ties with France

31/03/2006
Law on Equal Opportunities increased powers of High Authority against Discrimination and for Equality (HALDE)

10/2006
Government abandoned decree obliging companies of more than 50 employees to accept anonymous CVs

24/06/2006
Passage of new Code on entry and stay of foreigners and right of asylum (CESEDA)

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Migrant Profile




Results by strand

France - Overview
France - Labour market access
France - Family reunion
France - Long-term residence
France - Political participation
France - Access to nationality
France - Anti-discrimination
France - Public perceptions
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