“It is absolutely necessary to regularise workers who make this country work and who are, unfortunately, in an irregular situation”
For Laurent Berger, general secretary of CFDT, one of the main French workers’ unions, the French government’s recent proposal for the immigration law reform, which will be discussed in Parliament at the beginning of 2023, doesn’t go far enough.
One of the suggestions is to ease the professional integration of foreign workers by delivering a residence permit for “jobs in tension”, in sectors where it is difficult to fill the vacancies, such as in hospitality and construction.
In an interview for French television France 2, Laurent Berger suggests that the immigration situation requires an approach “not only economically useful, but also socially thankful to these workers”. He argues that they need to be “automatically regularised” and provided with work permits and official papers.