France Is Sending North African Graduates Home

November 9, 2011
France Is Sending North African Graduates Home
By AIDA ALAMI - New York Times

CASABLANCA, MOROCCO — Nabil Sebti, a 25-year-old Moroccan graduate of HEC Paris, one of the best and most competitive business schools in Europe, has started two businesses in France, one while still a student and one just after graduation. Yet he found himself catapulted back to Morocco this year after being denied a work permit.

“What is going on is unthinkable for a country like France, one that encourages republican and extremely strong humanist values,” said Mr. Sebti, who studied in Paris on a student visa and graduated in June and who had also attended a French secondary school in Morocco. “At a time of crisis, France deprives itself of contributors to its economic growth. We are not asking to stay in France forever. We just ask for the opportunity to get a first experience in France, which will allow us to contribute to the development of our countries.”

They speak French as a mother tongue, pepper cafe conversation with Sartre and Camus and are educated at some of the most elite schools in the country. And yet, a tightening of French immigration rules is forcing many recently graduated foreign students back home to North Africa, where few jobs await, potentially depriving France of productive, highly trained labor.

On May 31, Interior Minister Claude Guéant and Labor Minister Xavier Bertrand of France sent a memo — now called the “May 31 Circular” — to all prefectures in France, demanding a stricter application of the law regarding the status of foreign students applying for work permits and demanding a tightening of the number of permits issued.

“The government has set a goal to adapt to the legally set immigration needs,” the circular reads. “Given the impact of the most severe economic crisis in history on employment, this implies a reduction of the flow.”

As a result, foreign students say, obtaining a work permit after graduation has become a major challenge, and, since June, hundreds of them have returned to North Africa to economies offering little or no employment prospects.

“It was never easy to change status, but there clearly is a before May 31 and an after May 31. Today, it’s not difficult but almost impossible,” said Mr. Sebti, spokesman for the Collectif du 31 Mai, a group he started on Facebook to assist students in the same position to organize protests and to inform the news media about actions against the memo. “Before, when someone fulfilled all the requirements, within three weeks, they would get an answer from the prefecture. Today, students wait months to almost systematically get a no.”

Mr. Sebti said that at the Val d’Oise prefecture in the Paris region, “they say at the entrance the waiting time is 12 to 18 months” and that they have so far refused all permits. The two companies Mr. Sebti set up in France were the publishing and marketing of mobile applications for smartphones and a small consulting firm supporting entrepreneurs launching their start-up.

“For foreign students, the ‘Circular Guéant’ is like a surprise storm passing through, that sweeps away all professional projects, ” said Youssef, 25, from Morocco, a recent graduate with a master’s degree in economics from Paris-Dauphine University, another top school, who requested his last name not be used to avoid compromising a pending work visa application.

With the global economy in crisis, “it would be naïve to believe that Morocco will not be affected,” he said. “I am concerned over the ability of my country to absorb the flow of these graduates.

Pierre-Henry Brandet, the Interior Ministry’s spokesman, said that while the objective was clearly to control legal immigration, it was not to systematically refuse work permits to foreigners. The new regulations would ensure that students were in France for serious studies and did not abuse education visas as a backdoor immigration route, he said.

“This circular simply asks officials to enforce an immigration law that was passed in 2006,” Mr. Brandet said in a phone interview. “Students eligible for a change of status must get a job in line with their studies. We are also concerned about not plundering the elites of others countries — these elites who are trained in France can contribute significantly to the development of their nations.”

Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics, said that many foreign students were feeling a mission to return home and contribute to the reconstruction of their societies, despite the immediate uncertainties awaiting them.

“This is really a historic moment, many students can make a difference in their countries,” he said. “Most North African talents have left their countries while they are terribly needed. But the psychology and the mood have changed. There is a need to rejuvenate the civil society. These countries need technology, young minds who will help organize, establish businesses.”

In the long term, the French move will surely benefit the Maghreb economies, analysts say. But in the short term, with jobless rates among young, educated people in countries like Tunisia and Morocco approaching 20 percent, according to the most recent World Bank data, it will simply aggravate unemployment.

The prospect of leaving France is difficult for many who have spent years in the country, students say. And on the other side of the Mediterranean, there are mixed feelings about the loss of these talents.

“I feel a deep unease, the impression of having been deceived by all the values that I was taught during my studies: France, a defender of human rights — freedom, equality, fraternity,” Youssef said. “One of the reasons I am worried is because I lose all that I built up during the years I spent in France.”

Jean-Philippe Thiellay, vice president of the independent policy research institute Terra Nova in Paris said that stricter immigration laws targeting highly educated foreigners were hurting France both economically and politically.

“On an economic level, the students, who number between 6,000 and 8,000, representing a tiny proportion of the French population, are prevented from investing in France and creating wealth, even though they are young, talented graduates and multilingual. It’s absurd,” he said. “On a more political level, it gives the image of a stunted France, which sees itself as a besieged citadel — a pretty unattractive place.”

Students say that in the end, the move benefits no one. “It’s a negative sum game, because everyone is losing in the end,” Mr. Sebti said.