In an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien on 6 January 2025, Bruno Retailleau, France’s Minister of the Interior, expressed his desire to hold a referendum on immigration in France, deploring the current impossibility of doing so due to constitutional constraints.
“There is hardly another phenomenon that has shaken society to such an extent that the French people have never had their say”, he said, adding that the Constitution could be the subject of a referendum. The Minister views immigration to be a key challenge and is calling for a comprehensive approach to control migratory flows.
The Minister intends to achieve this through the reintroduction of the unlawful residence offence, as originally contained in article L. 621-1 of the French Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners and the Right of Asylum (CESEDA), which was abolished in 2012 under the presidency of François Hollande, strengthen the conditions under which undocumented migrants can be granted regular status, transform the State Medical Aid (AME) system to an emergency aid system restricting access to healthcare for undocumented migrants, extend detention periods for illegal residents held in administrative detention centres from 90 to 210 days and reorganise the process of family reunification through stricter criteria.
