Key Takeaways: France issues the highest number of deportation orders (OQTFs) in the EU. A failing digital administration system is stranding migrants in legal limbo. For many, a valid permit's expiration triggers an immediate, Kafkaesque descent into 'illegality' with severe consequences.
It begins with a void. An automated chatbot response. A webpage that hasn't been updated in over a month. For countless non-EU migrants in France, the simple act of renewing a residence permit has become an insurmountable digital maze. When the system fails to provide an appointment before the permit's expiry date, a profound transformation occurs overnight: a legal resident becomes 'illegal.'
This is not a story of clandestine border crossing. It is the story of students, workers, and families who followed the rules, only to be ensnared by an administration that prides itself on having "gone digital."
The Descent into Illegality
The author's own experience mirrors that of many. Despite anxious emails and endless webpage refreshes, their permit expired while trapped in an automated loop. The only recourse was a physical visit to the prefecture—the same office that issued a now-famous OQTF to Rayen Fakhfakh, a 21-year-old Tunisian medical student.
There, a scene of collective despair unfolded. A diverse crowd, united by the color of their passports and their predicament, pleaded with security guards. Their appeals were simple:
- Their permits were expiring or had expired.
- The digital appointment system was broken.
- They risked losing jobs, homes, and healthcare.
"We pleaded with them to let us enter the building, so that we could find a human to see the human in us."
The guards, themselves brown and black, were powerless to help without that elusive digital appointment. Defeat was the only outcome.
France's OQTF Leadership in Europe
While French political discourse often contrasts itself with the perceived vulgarity of U.S. migration policy, the data tells a different story. Between July and September 2025, France issued 33,760 OQTFs (Obligations to Quit French Territory). This dwarfs numbers from Germany (12,510) and Greece (10,175).
A stark pattern emerges:
- France hosts about 6 million non-EU citizens, half of Germany's 12 million.
- Yet, it issues nearly three times as many deportation orders.
- Over one-third of OQTFs are issued to migrants from former French colonies: Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
This raises an uncomfortable question: are these policies an afterlife of colonization, repackaged for the digital age?
From 'Sick' Bodies to 'Bad' Intentions
Scholar Wael Garnaoui extends Frantz Fanon's theory of the "North African syndrome." He argues the colonial diagnosis of the 'sick' body has morphed into the post-colonial administrative diagnosis of 'bad' intentions.
Today, this manifests in two ways:
- The presumption of intent to overstay justifies high Schengen visa rejection rates.
- The specter of "criminal" intentions like radicalization justifies residence permit rejections and OQTFs.
The result is the same: the migrant internalizes the failure, searching for flaws in their own actions, suffering a psychological and physical toll.
Life Unraveled by a Piece of Paper
Becoming 'illegal' is not a passive status. It is an active unraveling. The stories of Nadia and Malik, documented by Amnesty International, are testament to this:
- Nadia, an Ivorian single mother in Paris, lost her job immediately after her permit lapsed, triggering debt and housing insecurity.
- Malik, a 22-year-old Cameroonian refugee, faced similar collapse after a decade building a life in France.
The administration's response to its own processing delays—issuing short-term extensions that often forbid leaving the Schengen zone—creates a painful limbo. Migrants miss births, weddings, and funerals back home, their lives suspended.
The Political Weaponization of OQTFs
Record OQTF numbers are wielded as proof of state efficiency against a so-called "migration crisis." Right-leaning media fuels this by hyper-mediatizing crimes committed by OQTF carriers, painting all with a criminal brush.
This narrative ignores reality:
- Most OQTF recipients are young students or single women with no criminal record.
- The system is inefficient at actual removal: in 2024, only 11.5% of OQTFs resulted in a registered departure.
The "model migrant"—the student, the skilled worker—is framed as an administrative error, obscuring the systemic nature of the problem. For the state, the medical student Rayen and the anonymous woman in the metro equally represent the 'crisis' to be managed.
A Call for Solidarity Beyond Class
The author's final realization is the most powerful: social-class privilege no longer protects the Global South migrant from administrative humiliation. The meticulously followed path of the 'model minority'—decades of education and compliance—is no shield against the digital wall of a broken prefecture website.
The solution proposed is a fundamental solidarity among all migrants with precarious status, transcending profession or education level. When the system can render a doctor as 'illegal' as a street cleaner, the fight for dignity and fair procedure must be united. In the face of Europe's most aggressive deportation machinery, shared vulnerability demands a shared response.