While the Republicans are on the offensive with their immigration bill, the boss of the LR deputies Olivier Marleix denounces the government’s policy on immigration, stating that “this year, we will end with 500,000 foreigners welcomed. […] 500,000 foreigners, it’s a city like Toulouse“. He said it on franceinfo, a political guest on the morning television show. So, true or false?
almost true
If it is obvious that Olivier Marleix cannot predict right now what the immigration results will be for 2023, the fact remains that the deputy is rather in the right on the results for 2022. According to the figures from the Ministry of the Interior, 320,330 residence permits were issued last year. If we add asylum applications (156,103), the total is 476,433, which more or less corresponds to the population of Toulouse. Still, Olivier Marleix made a big rounding to reach 500,000.
The increase is significant compared to 2021. Thus, the number of residence permits issued increased by 17% over one year. As for asylum applications, the increase is even stronger: +28%.
Figures to detail
Behind the raw figures, it is always interesting to go into the details of the statistics. First remark, of the 320,000 residence permits issued, the first category is foreign students (108,000), most of whom will return to their country after their studies. The number of these students has increased sharply in 2022. Another category which has increased enormously, residence permits for “economic reasons”, particularly the categories of employees and seasonal or temporary workers.
For the assessment of asylum applications, Afghans remain in the lead (22,570), up 40% last year, while the Taliban have taken over in Kabul. Turkish asylum applications have actually doubled (9,979). Among them, many came from Kurds, others came from young men who do not want to do their military service in Turkey.