Approximately 6 million foreigners lived in France in 2024, and the immigrant population was estimated at 7.7 million (French-born persons with a migrant background are not included in these statistics). In the last year for which complete data are available, 343,024 foreigners arrived in the country, but many also leave, so the number of foreigners only increases by 150,000–170,000 per year. A conservative estimate puts the number of irregular migrants at between 500,000 and 1 million. In the constitutional framework of the secular state, the issue of immigration often gets mixed up with public safety, radicalization, and Islamist expansion. Just as some parties see potential in addressing the migrant population, they also see potential in addressing Islamism, so the issue of migration is likely to play a central role in the 2027 presidential election campaign.
The full text of the analysis in Hungarian is available here.
