Nadia, raising her 11-year-old daughter Emilie on her own (names have been changed), at their apartment in the Paris region, October 18, 2025. CAMILLE MILLERAND/DIVERGENCE FOR LE MONDE
In her small apartment sparsely furnished with second-hand items, Nadia, 45, sat in front of a pile of letters addressed to the Val-de-Marne Prefecture and reflected painfully on the past few years. "I always stayed on my path – it's the State that derailed me," she said. Her story is emblematic of those compiled by Amnesty International in a report released on Wednesday, November 5. The report demonstrates how the short duration of residence permits and the mountain of obstacles to renew them at prefectures, the local government offices that handle residency issues, "manufacture precariousness" for legal foreign workers – even in sectors facing labor shortages.
Since 2015, Nadia has worked as a care assistant – a profession facing severe labor shortages – and is the single mother of an 11-year-old daughter. (All names have been changed at the request of the people cited.) Nadia worked for a municipal social action association for many years. Originally from Côte d'Ivoire, she held several one-year residence permits, then two-year and then three-year cards. In 2020, like all "essential" workers, she remained at her post throughout the lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic.
