It’s one of those ruthless little steps that French politics seems to live off nowadays. On Friday, January 24, hard-line interior minister Bruno Retailleau moved to leave his mark on the country’s immigration system, issuing an administrative order to restrict the pathway to official work and residency status for undocumented immigrants living in France.

In the three-page document, Retailleau pared down the criteria according to which prefects — the leading state authorities in each French département — can normalize an undocumented immigrant’s residency status. His decree specifies that individuals must now be able to prove seven years of presence on French soil, as opposed to the five years stipulated under the prior norms on “exceptional residency authorizations.”

Retailleau’s order does not create a specific right for undocumented immigrants seeking official papers. Rather, it reaffirms that it’s a decision for the prefecture in each of France’s nearly one hundred local départements. Moreover, individuals applying for normalized status must prove that they work in an industry suffering labor shortages — one of the requirements included in a stringent immigration law adopted in early 2024. A list of these sectors is expected to be released in late February.