In its latest annual report, the Défenseur des droits describes a “very worrying erosion” in the relationship between users and public services.
Within this broader decline, the report highlights that immigration issues – notably residence permits (cartes/titres de séjour) - are most affected, with issues linked to foreigners’ rights now representing 41% of all cases handled by the Ombudsman.
In order to obtain a residence permit, a long-term visa is normally necessary. Visa applications are handled by consulates abroad, whilst residence permits are managed by the prefectures in France.
As we have previously reported, at the heart of the dysfunction lies the digital transformation of the system, notably through the Administration Numérique pour les Étrangers en France - ANEF) online platform. Designed to simplify procedures, it has instead become a bottleneck for many users.
The Défenseur des droits highlights that a large proportion of applicants cannot complete procedures independently online. Technical glitches, unclear instructions, and the impossibility of contacting an official means many applicants are left stranded.
The report also points to excessively long processing times once applications have been submitted. It is not uncommon for several months, or even more than a year, to pass before a response is issued.
Staff reductions in public services, combined with rising demand, have severely weakened the capacity of prefectures to process applications. This is compounded by administrative complexity and an over reliance on digital tools.
Support mechanisms, such as contact centres and digital assistance points, remain insufficient.
Not surprisingly, problems appear to be most severe in high pressure areas such as the Île-de-France and Bouches-du-Rhône.
The Ombudsman issued 14 recommendations, including ensuring a genuine right to non-digital procedures, improving digital tools, and increasing staffing levels in prefectures.
Other proposals include the automatic renewal of certain residence permits in cases where the administration fails to respond within a given timeframe, in order to prevent situations of administrative insecurity.
The French Supreme Administrative Court, the Conseil d’Etat has previously made clear that mandatory online procedures are only lawful if effective access to rights is guaranteed, particularly for those lacking digital access or skills.
Against this backdrop of growing criticism, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has publicly acknowledged the scale of the problem. In an interview with the French regional daily Ouest-France earlier this month, he unveiled what he described as a “massive plan” to tackle delays in residence permit processing.
The urgency, he admitted, is driven by the more general loss of rights highlighted by the Défenseur des droits. These include loss of employment, housing instability, and legal precarity when permits expire before renewal is completed.
The government intends to recruit 500 additional contract staff, representing a roughly 20% increase in personnel dedicated to processing residence permits.
Alongside staffing increases, the plan includes several technical simplifications:
Extending the validity of biometric data from five to ten years;
Removing certain administrative obligations, such as reporting address changes for long-term permit holders;
Streamlining procedures to reduce workload in prefectures.
It remains to be seen just how effective these proposals will be, but it is noteworthy that they fall well short of what the Défenseur des droits’ has proposed, notably the need for a more fundamental reform of the centralised digital system and for applicants to be able to have access to officials.
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