French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez outlines strategy to accelerate residence permit processing and expulsions

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez detailed his strategy for immigration in an interview with Le Figaro on April 10. His plan focuses on three main areas: accelerating the processing of residence permits, regulating work-based regularizations, and intensifying the expulsion of Algerian nationals in irregular situations. Nuñez stated his refusal to modify the existing legal framework regarding undocumented immigrants, affirming, "I will not touch the Retailleau circular. We are not going back on it; we are applying it." He noted that the exceptional admission procedure for professions experiencing labor shortages resulted in only 1,700 residence permits last year, a figure he deems modest. He aims to increase the use of the 2024 immigration law's work-based regularization mechanism, having instructed prefects to process pending applications, a measure prompted by economic stakeholders. Nuñez emphasized that combating irregular immigration and border repatriations remain priorities. He also advocates for stricter application of residence permit withdrawal for breaches of republican principles or public order. To address processing delays for renewal applications, the Interior Minister committed to reducing wait times by hiring 500 full-time temporary staff and simplifying procedures. He attributed current backlogs to increased application volumes and the growing complexity of foreign national law. Nuñez aims to halve the processing time for residence permits to an average o