France to Set Immigration Quotas to ‘Regain Control,’ PM Says

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Emmanuel Macron’s government will introduce France’s first quotas to regulate immigration as the president seeks to address demands from conservative voters while meeting the needs of Europe’s second biggest economy.

“We want to regain control of our migration policy,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in a declaration in Paris on Wednesday. “Our desire is to make choices about who we welcome, to fix quantitative targets or quotas - both terms are fine by me - in terms of immigration for work, to put everything into integration through work,” he said.

The government unveiled on Wednesday a list of measures to curb immigration from outside the European Union, cut welfare for asylum seekers and migrants and crack down on unlawful uses of the universal healthcare coverage that migrants have access to. Annual quotas for professional immigration will fix limits for sectors where the country lacks workers with the necessary expertise.

The plan comes as France finds itself immersed in fresh debates on immigration and integration. Macron, who spoke to a far-right magazine last week about Muslims in France and migration, has sought to open a national discussion. The French leader and his government have repeatedly said they didn’t want the topic to be discussed solely by far-right figures, including National Rally head Marine Le Pen.

France’s plan concerns only immigration coming from non-EU states, as citizens of the bloc don’t need visas or permits to work or live in another member country.

The proposals comes after Macron’s government last year passed a law on immigration to shorten asylum application deadlines, double the time for which illegal migrants can be detained and introduce a one-year prison sentence for any one caught entering France illegally.

Under the same plan, France will double by 2027 the number of foreign students who come to France every year. Philippe said the government wants “to go far in openness in what is good for France and far into controls where there are abuses.”

The government will start talks with social partners and regions in coming weeks to determine the requirements, Labor minister Muriel Penicaud said on Tuesday. France will draw up a list of areas where it lacks sufficiently trained workers and will offer work visas for a defined period and job. The new system should be in place by summer of next year, Penicaud said.

Philippe’s cabinet didn’t list any sectors that will be targeted by quotas and didn’t give a yearly target. France receives about 250,000 migrants each year, according to the OECD. More than half of them come from Europe, then from Africa and a smaller group from Asia, according to EU statistics.

“Quotas are a very good idea,” Safran Chairman Ross McInnes said on BFM Business television on Wednesday. “In Australia for example, it has been very successful and served the economy.”

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said authorities will clear out camps in northeast Paris, without saying where migrants will be re-settled. He said such sites near French cities showed “an anomaly in the functioning of our shelters system.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net;James Regan in Paris at jregan65@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Caroline Alexander

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