Legal Immigration Hits Record High in France as Populists Call for National Referendum

Immigration rose to new heights in France last year amid growing calls from the populist National Rally for a referendum on immigration.

Provisional data released by the Ministry of Interior on Tuesday showed that the number of visas issued by France increased by 17 per cent last year to 2,858,083, including 288,108 long-term stay visas.

Meanwhile, a record 336,700 residence permits were issued to foreigners, an increase of 1.8 per cent over 2023 and nearly six per cent higher than in 2022.

Students received the most residence permits, 109,300, followed by familial migrants — also known as chain migrants — at 90,600. Economic and humanitarian migrants comprised the third-largest cohort, with 55,000 residence permits received.

According to Le Figaro, this brings the total number of people with valid residence permits in the country to over 4.3 million, a new high for France.

Migrants from Algeria, a former French colony, were the highest-represented group, with nearly 650,000 residence permits.

The figures showed that just 21,000 illegal migrants were removed from the country in 2024. However, this was slightly up from the previous year when 17,000 were expelled.

Commenting on the figures, the leader of the anti-mass migration National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, said: “It is no longer possible for the French to be satisfied with words and empty declarations; we must now take action and implement the necessary measures to regain control of our migration policy.”

National Rally President Jordan Bardella added: “The doors of our country have never been so open, and immigration has never been so numerous. {snip}”

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