In the evening of Tuesday, December 20, 2023, the French Senate and the National Assembly adopted the Immigration Bill, which notably provides for an increase in registration fees for foreign students, a bond of compulsory return and the justification of attendance.
The controversy is currently raging in France where the Immigration bill has notably provoked the anger of student unions, universities and grandes écoles.
Indeed, in the voted text, we find the principle of the payment of a deposit by foreigners if they want to study in France. But faced with the controversy, the executive delayed.
In these articles are several conditions to be able to study in France as a foreign student starting with the “prior deposit of a return deposit for the issuance of a residence permit for reasons of study”. Each student must justify a financial mattress to study on French soil. Sum which will be “returned to him” when “he leaves France”.
In other words, the government would definitively close the door of universities to foreign students, believe the student unions, which castigate the text including an article confirming that registration fees will be increased for “foreign students on international mobility”.
This law concerns more than 303,000 students, or 11% of students in higher education. Two -thirds of these students are enrolled in university and half of them are from the African continent.
Managers of business schools, presidents of public universities, student unions, have all insurgent against this text which will weaken access to higher education for international students, making France lose part of its attractiveness. For its part, the government has tried to reassure the world of the university, even if it means returning to the measure of “return deposit”.
Their anger was heard by the government which tried to reassure. Élisabeth Borne said that the requested deposit could be a “minimal sum”. She mentioned the possibility of a sum of only “10 or 20 euros”, quickly specifying that the sum will be “referred to a regulatory text”.
Currently to study in France, the current regulations stipulate that a foreign student off-EU must have at least 615 euros per month, or more than 7000 euros per year on his bank account. This sum is not strictly speaking a deposit, but a bank letter transmitted to the authorities and which attests that the student has the necessary resources.
Seized by Emmanuel Macron and the left, the Constitutional Council now has a maximum month to rule. Constitutional judges will be able to decide between one (very improbable) total censorship of the law, a more classic partial censorship of certain articles, or validate all of the provisions.
