Upcoming: Important changes in French policies

In addition to the reform of the foreigners’ law, announced some months ago, other changes (legislatives and Europeans) are foreseeable for the end of 2014.

1. Bernard Cazeneuve, French Interior Minister, has announced the introduction by end of June, of two bills modifying the right of foreigners.

The draft provides with significant legislative reforms such as:

• Removal of the obligation to apply for a work permit for an assignment of less than 3 months
• Removal of different resident permits that will be combined under a new resident permit with the mention « talents passport »
• Removal of Contract of Reception and Integration (CAI). A new type of contract should be implemented instead.
• Widespread use of the resident permit valid for several years (valid 4 years max) after a first resident permit valid one year
• Widespread use of the long stay visa valid as a resident permit, which avoid foreigners to file their application at the Prefecture during the first year of residence in France.

This bill will be discussed in the Parliament and could be substantially modified before it comes into force.

2. Besides, are under discussion at the French Parliament, three drafts to combat frauds for posted workers^[1], to combat social dumping in the building sector^[2] and to assert the independence of labor inspectors^[3].

3. European Union, for its part, adopted on May 15, 2014 a Directive ^[4] to facilitate multiple temporary intra-group transfer of workers within several member states of the European Union.

• The following third country national workers are concerned by this directive:
  • Manager: person holding a senior position, who primarily directs the management of the host entity.
  • Specialist: person possessing specialized knowledge essential to the host entity’s areas of activity, techniques or management.
  • Trainee employee (paid work): a person with a university degree who is transferred to a host entity for career development purposes or in order to obtain training.

  A new resident card will be created, with mention « mobile ICT » to combine those various categories.

• Duration of an intra-corporate transfer:
  • Less than 3 years for Managers and Specialists.
  • Less than 1 year for trainee employees.
• INNOVATION of the directive: after a first intra-company transfer, it will be possible to subsequently post a worker in another host entity of the group, located in a second member State.
• For less than 90 days over 6 months: the host entity in the first Member State notifies the first Member State and the second Member State of the intention of the intra-corporate transferee to work in an entity established in the second Member State. The second Member State can refuse this transfer.
• For more than 90 days over 6 months: A notification is not enough. A complete application must be submitted in the second Member State where the posted worker will be transferred. Once the petition is approved, the transferee will receive from the second Member State a new resident card « mobile ICT ».
• To be followed : transposition by Member States should take place before the 29th of November, 2016. This directive does not apply to United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark.

Sources

• ^[1] To follow Parliament’s work assemblee-nationale.fr
• ^[2] To follow Parliament’s work assemblee-nationale.fr
• ^[3] To follow Parliament’s work assemblee-nationale.fr
• ^[4] eur-lex.europa.eu