This is one of the most criticized provisions of the “immigration” law, adopted on December 19, 2023, and on which the position of the Constitutional Council is expected by January 25. The conditioning of access to family benefits and housing assistance (APL) to five years of regular residence for non-European foreigners (or to two and a half years and three months respectively if the person works) was analyzed as the consecration of “national preference”, a theme dear to the far right.
This measure was introduced by the senatorial right in the first article of the law and could be challenged, in particular because it constitutes a legislative rider (it modifies the Social Security code, without direct link with the object of the law) or because it disproportionately contravenes the principle of equality.
The left-wing parliamentary oppositions which have contacted the Constitutional Council also denounce its “very strong social impact”. The latter, however, was not anticipated by the government. Questioned at a press conference on January 18, the director general of the National Family Allowance Fund (CNAF), Nicolas Grivel, himself said he was unaware of the potential effects of the article: “The law has not yet been promulgated”he recalled, adding that it is “difficult to know what will be applied”.
31,000 children affected
Today, foreigners from countries outside the European Union (EU) represent 9% of households receiving family allowance funds, all benefits combined, or 11% of the amounts paid (8.2 billion euros) . Among them, just over 800,000 foreigners from outside the EU receive housing assistance. However, the CNAF today says it is unable to say how many have been living in France for less than five years or how many have been working and for how long.
Despite the absence of data, four economists undertook to model the consequences of the text, according to a contribution sent to the Constitutional Council and included in a note from the transpartisan collective Our public services published on January 19. The authors, including Michael Zemmour, from Lumière Lyon-II University, and Muriel Pucci, from Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne University and also president of the scientific committee of the National Council for Policies to Combat Poverty and Exclusion social, carried out simulations based on on the INSEE “Tax and social income” survey of 2019.
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