Didier Leschi, director of the French Office for Immigration and Integration during a photo shoot, in Paris, June 9, 2022. JOEL SAGET / AFP
While the text arrives on March 28 in the Senate, the director of the OFII Didier Leschi ensures that the mastery of the language is part of a “European harmonization”.
Foreign nationals who fail the French exam that the government wants to impose as part of its immigration bill will not be expelled, assured Monday, March 13 the boss of the French Immigration Office and integration (OFII), Didier Leschi.
The text of the executive, which must be examined in the Senate from March 28, provides for “make the first issue of a multi-year residence permit conditional on mastering a minimum level of French», where obtaining these cards is currently conditional on participation in language training.
“It is not because we do not have a multi-annual title that we cannot have a new annual title. It is not a question of excluding people from the right of residence through this language objective“, explained Didier Leschi, heard Monday morning by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH).
“Setting a goal for people is a way of contributing to their motivation. The language requirement is now quite low, since it is to attend 80% of class hours“, while 67% of the signatories of the Republican Integration Contract (CIR) reach the minimum level of French, he continued to defend this measure of the integration component of the bill.
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“European harmonization”
It’s about a “european harmonization“, estimated the director general of the Ofii. “The countries which have a much stronger requirement on the language are not necessarily countries which integrate less“, he insisted, taking the example of Germany where the linguistic requirement “exists even before the arrival on German territoryin the context of family reunification.
With this bill, the government also intends to facilitate the expulsion of foreign offenders and undertake a structural reform of the right to asylum. The text, which is the subject of radical opposition from the Republicans, must be examined until the beginning of April in the Senate (controlled by the right) before a passage in the National Assembly planned around the summer.
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