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What is the relative importance of the different elements involved in this first kind of immigration?

In terms of the number of citizens of the European Union or the European Economic Area that enter France every year, we only have data on active wage earners (because they are required to report this information). The number is estimated at 35,000 wage earners plus 6,000 students for a total of 41,000 people.

Regarding asylum seekers, asylum status holders (refugees as defined by the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees), and foreigners that France accepts on humanitarian grounds or health reasons, the figures for 2006 are as following:

• 34,800 asylum requests
• 4,500 children accompanying their parents
• 6,400 applicants in poor health
• 9,800 refugees who received their residency card as well as 400 granted territorial asylum

The asylum application process can end in a number of different ways: they can be granted refugee status, issued a residency card (or another kind of residency permit), become illegal residents, or leave the country. The statistics on the number of asylum applications per year show how asylum represents an important portion of immigration.

Foreigners that acquire permission to remain in France in order to work (salaried workers, independent, artistic, or cultural professions, etc.) account for varied, uneven influxes.
In 2006, 10,700 residency carts were issued to workers coming to France from non-EU member countries.
Foreigners authorised (based on financial resources) to remain in France without working included non-EU citizens who had already retired (2,300 in 2006) and long-stay visitors (6,500 in 2006).
As for students, in 2006 we counted 45,000 students from non-EU member countries who came to study in France for the first time. A certain number of them return home after finishing school; they therefore cannot be considered relevant to long-term immigration statistics.

As for those involved in a regularisation procedure, 31,700 clandestine foreigners received a permanent residency card in 2007. A large number of regularisation cases are contingent on the acquisition of a “Family and private life” permit which authorises residency in France on the basis of family or personal ties (16,100 out of 26,000 regularisation cases in 2003); thus, these individuals are not counted twice (in both the regularisation and family immigration statistics).

Regarding immigration granted on the grounds of family reunification (family members brought over from the country of origin, parents of French-born citizens, those issued a “Family and private life” card), the numbers break down along the following lines:

• Family members of French citizens: 55,900 in 2006
• Family members of foreigners: 20,000 in 2006
• Personal and family ties (“Family and private life” permit): 22,900 in 2006

In total, this group represents 98,800 people from non-EU countries.

Parliament’s latest report on “Immigration Policy Trends” defines (p.75) 5 categories of long stay entry cards issued to non-EU citizens:

• Refugees: 10,200 in 2006 (10,000 per year on average since 2000)
• Workers (economic immigration): 10,700 in 2006 (13,600 per year on average since 2000)
• Students: 45,000 in 2006 (49,500 per year on average since 2000)
• Family-based immigration: 98,800 in 2006 (91,000 per year on average since 2000)
• Plus a miscellaneous category of people with various motives for coming to France (visitors, sick people, retirees, other): 21,000 in 2006

Legal immigration into France, as this report has calculated, totals at 183,600 people in 2006.

Economic immigration represents 5,8% (just over one twentieth) whereas family-based immigration represents 54%, or six times more.

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