Qualified immigration in France: a visa for growth?

Two researchers from the “Conseil d’analyse économique” (CAE, Economic Analysis Committee), French entity in economic research and prospects, have just published a Keynote about qualified immigration in France. They recommend a revamp of the French immigration policy to better promote a qualified immigration, including through the improvement of reception of foreign students in France.

The CAE is made of recognised economists, academics and researchers, and aims at “leading in full independence economic analysis for the French government”. The CAE “studies the queries submitted by the French Prime Minister and the Minister of Economy”, but may also “carry out on its own initiative the prospective analysis of economic issues it deems relevant for the appropriate conduct of the economic policy of the country”.

An independent report for a France open to the world

 The aim of this Keynote on immigration, which is the result of independent work by two authors, Emmanuelle Auriol, professor at the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) and the University of Toulouse 1 Capitole, and Hillel Rapoport, professor at the University of Paris I and the Paris School of Economics (PSE), is to “demonstrate the critical role of immigration in innovation, business creation and integration into the global economy”.

As the authors say in their introduction, the aim of this Keynote is clearly to promote qualified economic immigration of diverse origins, “for a France open to the world, more innovative, with better performance”.

The importance of scientific and cultural influence

 The authors of the report note that at the global level, the number of immigrants with higher education degrees has increased by 70% over ten years to reach 30 million in 2011. However, as the CAE points out, France, which “had in the past been able to attract intellectuals, artists, researchers and entrepreneurs from all over the world, thereby strengthening its economic strength and its scientific and cultural influence”, now seems to have “focused on legal immigration (family, humanitarian)”.

However, the Keynote states that welcoming foreign students is a “key factor in increasing skilled immigration” and that France “has efficient assets in this area: its universities offer a varied and financially competitive choice of training courses”. Furthermore, as part of the Bienvenue en France strategy (Welcome to France), the CAE notes that Campus France is in charge of the implementation of this certification which sets “a quality standard for the policy of welcoming foreign students to French higher education institutions”. With this initiative, the Keynote states, France defined the objective of welcoming half a million foreign students by 2027.

How to promote qualified immigration

 Based on these findings, the authors of the Keynote, based on the experience of other OECD countries, make a series of recommendations designed to “promote labour immigration to France, and especially qualified immigration”. Four main objectives are defined:

- to respond effectively to the needs of the labour market in the short term, continue the actions to “process work visa applications from companies with clear and predictable eligibility criteria in the context of occupations defined as ’in shortage’”;

- to attract qualified workers, carry out “an evaluation of the Passeport talents (Talent Passport) scheme” in order to intensify its issuance, “while assessing the quality of foreign degrees and targeting specific countries with a surplus of young graduates which are poorly represented in our immigration”;

- to attract more international students, encourage French higher education institutions “to use the Bienvenue en France certification, and to develop their offer of courses in English as well as the quality of their training”;

- to intensify these efforts to attract foreign students, facilitate “the transition from study to work by making the granting of a residence permit after studies more fluid and extending it, especially for highly qualified students, without adding criteria of minimum salary or suitability of the work to the qualifications”.

These are all concrete recommendations which, the CAE concludes, could “encourage diversified and qualified labour immigration and change a situation that is detrimental to our country”.

To know more: 

• View the keynote from the Conseil d'analyse économique

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