T
he record number of immigrants who arrived legally in France in 2025 – 384,000, an increase of 11.2% compared to 2024 – should come as no surprise. In a world marked by constant exchanges and increasingly shaken by crises, political violence, economic shocks and climate disruption, it is hardly unexpected that more and more people cross borders in search of a better future. This annual figure from the French Interior Ministry, released on Tuesday, January 27, captures these human flows only imperfectly, as it covers only the first residency permits granted after often lengthy administrative procedures. Yet it does reflect a certain attractiveness of France: Foreigners choose the country to study, seek protection, work and join their families.
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Half of new immigrants in France are students or refugees
That these movements are logical does not mean they should escape debate. The fact that the annual number of first residency permits has doubled since 2011 or that the share of immigrants in the population, stable from the 1970s to the 1990s, rose from 7.3% to 11.3% between 1999 and 2024, is significant. But the reality reflected in the latest statistics is not the "overwhelming influx" invoked by the right and the far right to stoke fear and anger, often omitting that foreigners make up only a small minority of France's population (8.8%) and that one in three French people has an immigrant background. Nor is the situation one of strictly closed borders, indifferent to human rights, as the left has claimed. The number of foreign students has never been higher, and more than half of all asylum requests are granted, a record level.
