Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the French radical Left party La France Insoumise and candidate for the upcoming French presidential elections, advocated for large-scale regularisation scheme for illegal immigrants and clarified the party’s anti-EU stance.
Like Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Mélenchon framed regularisation as both an humanitarian and economic measure, arguing that granting legal status to undocumented workers would increase the number of contributors to France’s social security system.
“We support granting legal status to all workers. By doing so, we would immediately gain a substantial number of new contributors to the social security system,” he told reporters during an online press conference for non-mainstream media.
According to FIPECO, a non-profit public-finance research organisation founded by former Court of Auditors judge François Ecalle, the financing needs of social security agencies amounted to €6.7 billion euros in 2025.
The left-wing leader also criticised France’s handling of residence permit renewals, arguing that state administration is contributing to the growth of the undocumented population.
“Our first priority would be to reorganise the system surrounding the ten-year residence permit. The current situation has become completely absurd,” he said.
“It is actually the state administration that is turning people into undocumented migrants—people who previously had legal papers but whose renewals have been made practically impossible. As a result, they end up being treated as if they were offenders by prefectures and the administrative services responsible for these matters, ” he added.
Mélenchon further called for a more humane approach to migration, arguing that children, families and long-term residents should be eligible for accelerated regularisation procedures.
The LFI leader also criticised European migration policy, particularly proposals to return asylum seekers and migrants to third countries outside the European Union.
“The problem is that the European Union has decided to send people back directly to third countries,” he said.
On June 17, the European Parliament voted in favour of faster deportation and tough return rules of illegal immigrants.
During the press conference, Mélenchon also reaffirmed LFI’s doctrine of “European disobedience”, under which a future LFI government would refuse to apply European Union rules.
“We disobey European rules if they result in social or environmental regression,” he said. “We also disobey them if they prevent social or environmental progress.”
The comments reflect a longstanding position within LFI that France should remain within the European Union while declining to implement EU measures considered incompatible with the party’s domestic policy objectives.
According to estimates from France’s Interior Ministry, the number of undocumented migrants living in France ranges between 600,000 and 900,000 people, with most estimates centring around 700,000.
Regularisations based on employment remain granted each year fluctuates depending on administrative practices and government priorities.
The number of regularisations based on employment has been declining in France. Last year approximately 28,610 regularisations were recorded nationwide.
On the first day alone, 13,500 migrants submitted applications through the Spanish Government’s new “extraordinary regularisation” scheme. https://t.co/fUalBd0D8v
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) April 17, 2026
