Around 700,000 Foreigners are in an Irregular Situation in France, according to Laurent Nuñez

IMMIGRATION “CHALLENGE”: The Minister of the Interior revealed this estimate in response to Jordan Bardella who demanded a precise figure for the presence of undocumented foreigners in France

he estimate has ultimately not changed much since 2021. Like Gerald Darmanin before him, the current Minister of the Interior Laurent Nuñez, gave on Wednesday an estimate of 700,000 foreigners in an “irregular situation” in France.

Pressed to say, on CNews/Europe 1, if he maintained an estimate of 200,000 to 300,000 illegal immigrants given Monday on LCI, the minister replied: “No, no”, “on another channel […] I did not want to not give a figure so as not to fuel controversy, clearly implying that it was not the right one.

Jordan Bardella targeted the former Paris police chief in recent days appointed to Beauvau, castigating his “inaction”. He sent him a letter after hearing him on LCI “refuse to answer a question asked by a journalist relating to the number of foreigners in an irregular situation”. Laurent Nuñez stressed on Wednesday that there are only estimates.

A “challenge” more than a “submersion”

“In my mind, things are very clear, there is no difficulty: 700,000 illegal immigrants in France is an estimate. The range of 600,000 to 900,000 seems fairly consistent to me, but the figure of 700,000 is just as consistent. But once again, I insist, I never want people to give the impression that we are idle on these subjects.”

To the question of how he described the level of immigration and why he did not use the formula “migratory submersion”, the minister replied that “there is a migratory challenge: the climatic context, the economic crises” and that “we must work with it’Europe to better control our borders and be more efficient on the national territory. But “there are words that I do not use”, he added, because “systematically, when we go to these debates, it is to point out a deficiency on the part of the public authorities”, which he rejected.