What is 'national preference' for the French and how would it hurt foreigners?

The concept of favouring French people over foreigners - préférence nationale or priorité nationale in French - is a long-standing policy of the Rassemblement National (formerly Front National) party, first proposed by former leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 1980s. The main intention of the policy is to pressure foreigners who are legally resident in France to leave by making their lives more difficult.

"We're going to have to send home a certain number of millions of foreigners who are here with us", declared Jean-Marie Le Pen about the policy on the TV show L'Heure de vérité in 1985.

Now it is back in the party's manifesto for the June 30th/July 7th snap parliamentary elections.

So how would this policy work?

Rassemblement National has said that it wants to inscribe 'national preference' in three key areas; employment, access to social housing and access to benefits.

The party manifesto says that all benefits - including family allowances, carers allowances or certain workplace bonuses - would only be available to people who have worked for more than five years in France. This would seem to rule out people who have retired to France from ever claiming social support.

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In terms of housing, this would affect access to HLM - the low-cost social housing that is available to people on low incomes (eg keyworkers). Under the policy it seems that waiting lists would give priority to French citizens ahead of non-French citizens.

Marine Le Pen said in 2013 that national preference should also be applied to crèches, so if there is a waiting list (and many crèches are heavily over-subscribed), all children of French parents should be given a place before children of foreign parents, even if they had been on the waiting list for longer.

National preference for employment

The party also says that it wishes to apply national preference in employment - but exactly how it would apply to work has not been spelled out.

The basic principle is that if employers have the choice between a French and a non-French candidate they would be required to choose the French candidate, or risk some kind of penalty.

However no detail is provided of the process for employers, the penalties that would be imposed or if there would be any kind of exceptions - for example if there are no French candidates with the right qualifications.

In 2019, then deputy party leader Florian Philippot suggested that it would be done by imposing extra taxes for the employer on every work contract for a non-French workers - therefore giving employers an incentive not to hire foreigners. This seems different to the more recent iteration of imposing a penalty on employers who don't hire French candidates.

Another plank of RN's policy is to withdraw the residency cards of any foreigners who have been unemployed in France for more than one year.

There is also the suggestion that it could apply to people already in work.

The moderate CFDT trade union, which has looked in detail at the impact of national preference, has warned it could be used to allow employers to prioritise French staff for promotion, training, career development and even holiday time.

In previous debates on employment law, RN MPs have attempted to table amendments banning non-French nationals from standing for union or staff representative roles within the workplace.

The key thing about 'national preference' is that it would impact foreigners for their entire life in France.

At present non-EU citizens moving to France to work at first need working visas and then a residency permit linked to their work status (eg employee or self-employed). After spending some time in the country - usually 3-5 years but individual cases vary - they then become eligible for long-term residency cards, which do not have to be changed if their work status changes.

Simply put - it gets easier and less onerous the longer you live here, although if you are not French an employer will always ask for proof that you have the right to work in France (a residency card that allows work is sufficient).

National preference, however, would last for the worker's entire life - on the basis of where they were born. Even taking French citizenship may not give them the same rights as French-born people (see below for the section on dual nationals).

Are unions in favour?

These kind of policies are often floated as a way to 'protect' local workers from unfair competition from immigrants who may be willing to accept lower wages and longer hours.

French unions, however, are strongly opposed to the policy. The CFDT union - France's largest and usually regarded as one of the most moderate - says: "The CFDT fights against this vision of the world, which is contrary to the founding principles of the Declaration of Human Rights and Article 1 of our Constitution.

"We are opposed to the principle of a society in which nationality takes precedence over everything else, in defiance of equal rights and solidarity between workers."

What about dual nationals?

At present dual nationals are treated by the administration in the same way as single nationals and once you become French you have the same rights as people who were born French.

Another plank of RN's policy is to change that - although the manifesto has no policies towards dual nationals (unlike previous RN manifestos which wanted to ban people from holding more than one nationality, meaning that people who become French would have to give up their original nationality) a more recent RN proposal is to to ban dual nationals from holding fonctionnaire (public sector) jobs.

Party leader Jordan Bardella also seemed to make a distinction against dual nationals when he said: "French people of foreign origin or nationality have nothing to fear, if they work, pay their taxes, pay their contributions, respect the law..." - therefore reinforcing the difference as he sees it between "French people of foreign origin or nationality" and other French people.

There are around 3.5 million dual nationals living in France - some of them foreigners who have taken French citizenship, others who have been dual nationals from birth due to having a French and a non-French parent.

Aren't there already policies in place that discriminate against non-French people?

There are some yes - non-EU nationals need a visa or a residency card to live in France. If you're moving here to take up a job offer, your employer may have to sponsor your visa. Not all employers are willing to do this and you may see job adverts that specify that the candidate must already have the right to live and work in France, or that state that the company will not sponsor visas.

Depending on the sector you work in, your employer may also have to obtain a work permit for you, and as part of the process (again, depending on the sector), the employer may have to specify that they have already advertised the role locally and have been unable to find a qualified EU-citizen candidate. The extra administrative burden makes some employers wary of hiring non-EU staff.

While these may, on a practical level, be a deterrent, the only explicit rule about jobs for non-French nationals concern fonctionnaire (public sector) roles.

A few haute-fonctionnaire jobs are reserved for French citizens only - these are usually top civil servant roles, heading up departments at ministries for example, or those within the security services.

However a much broader range of fonctionnaire roles are reserved for EU citizens only - you don't necessarily have to be French, but you do need to have citizenship of an EU country. These includes roles such as working at the préfecture or mairie but doesn't include all public sector workers (eg teachers do not need to be EU citizens, neither do healthcare workers).

Under the current rules there is no distinction between dual nationals and single-nationality French, neither is there a discrimination against French citizens who were born abroad or who have foreign parents - this could change under an RN government.

Would national preference be legal in France?

As we've seen above there are some limited examples of preference for French citizens already in effect, but there are suggestions that a full national preference policy would be unconstitutional.

Such a policy - if enacted - would certainly be referred to the Constitutional Council for review. Le Pen has suggested that a national referendum could be held to amend the French constitution by adding a provision for national preference.

If the national preference also excluded EU citizens then it would break EU rules too - the RN knows this, it is one of several EU rules that they explicitly intend to break, as well as refusing to pay France's financial contributions.

This would undoubtedly provoke a crisis within the EU, but what powers or willingness it has to censure France remains to be seen.