This is one of the lessons of a report published Monday, November 14 by the Macronist deputies Stella Dupont and Mathieu Lefèvre: the France has taken in around 106,000 Ukrainian refugees since the start of the Russian invasion in February, for an estimated budget of some 600 million euros in 2022. In early August, the French Office for Immigration and Integration was advancing the number of 99,000 Ukrainian refugees having reached France.
In the document, the elected representatives of Renaissance (ex-LREM) regret in passing the absence of “budgeting” of this reception in the finance bill for 2023, even if this expenditure is “unpredictable”. According to their report, “the number of people received (adults and minors) is estimated at around 106,000, i.e. a contingent close to the objective of 100,000 people set by the President of the Republic on March 15, 2022”.
Questioned by the two deputies, the Ministry of the Interior “estimates the amount of expenditure at 579 million euros” dedicated in 2022 to the reception of Ukrainian refugees within the budgetary mission “immigration, asylum and integration”, they assure. This amount includes in particular “309.2 million euros for accommodation, 242.2 million for the allowance for asylum seekers and 13.8 million for social support”.
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The two parliamentarians explain that these 579 million euros “do not sum up the financial effort made by France”, since between 40 and 60 million euros are added to this for other accommodation measures coming under the Territorial Cohesion budget. These credits do not include “the indemnity” 150 euros per month “likely to be paid soon to households hosting or having hosted” Ukrainian refugees.
The expenditure of 579 million euros will be “renewed, in whole or in part, in 2023 but the government has chosen not to include the corresponding credits in the finance bill and to favor separate subsequent financing”say the co-rapporteurs, who would have preferred a figure to appear in the 2023 draft budget.
Stella Dupont and Mathieu Lefèvre also note that the reception of Ukrainian refugees has changed “citizen accommodation (with volunteer families) of dimension” with “half of the temporary protected who are not housed in a device supervised by the State”. “There was an extraordinary mobilization. Citizen accommodation is a solution for the future, win-win, a useful tool when it is done through relay associations and professionals”said Stella Dupont to AFP.