Country-wide policy
The Code Says Three Times That an Agreement Comes First, and That Is How a Bilateral Accord Replaces It
The CESEDA does not claim to be the whole of French immigration law and says so in its first article. Article L. 110-1 states that the code governs entry, stay and removal subject to Union law and to international conventions. Article L. 411-1, which lists the residence documents a foreigner needs for a stay over three months, opens with the same reservation - subject to France's international engagements or to book II. Article L. 412-1, which makes a first card conditional on a long-stay visa, opens with it again. And article L. 436-6 extends the residence-permit taxes to titles provided for by treaties or agreements "sauf stipulations contraires prévues par ces traités ou accords". That is the mechanism by which a bilateral agreement can govern a nationality instead of the code: it is not an exception the administration grants, it is a reservation the code makes about itself, repeated at each of the points where the code would otherwise bite.
Topics it changes
- Visiting as a tourist
- Residency on passive income
- Residency as a retiree
- Residency through work
- Residency through investment
- Residency as a student
- Residency through ancestry
- Residency through marriage
- Residency under a regional treaty
At a glance
- What the code is subject to
- Union law and international conventions, stated in the code's first article
CESEDA article L. 110-1.
- Where it is repeated
- At the head of the article requiring a residence document, and at the head of the article requiring a long-stay visa
CESEDA articles L. 411-1 and L. 412-1, each opening with a reservation for France's international engagements.
- Even the fees yield
- The residence-permit taxes apply to titles provided for by treaties or agreements except where those instruments stipulate otherwise
CESEDA article L. 436-6.
- What this record does not say
- Which agreements exist, or what any of them provides
No bilateral agreement was read. What is recorded is the mechanism in the code, not its contents.
What the law says
«Le présent code régit, sous réserve du droit de l'Union européenne et des conventions internationales, l'entrée, le séjour et l'éloignement des étrangers en France ainsi que l'exercice du droit d'asile.»Our translation - not official
This code governs, subject to the law of the European Union and to international conventions, the entry, stay and removal of foreigners in France as well as the exercise of the right of asylum.
The reservation, in the code's opening sentence. Union law and international conventions both come before it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Sous réserve des engagements internationaux de la France ou du livre II, tout étranger âgé de plus de dix- huit ans qui souhaite séjourner en France pour une durée supérieure à trois mois doit être titulaire de l'un des documents de séjour suivants :»Our translation - not official
Subject to France's international engagements or to book II, every foreigner over eighteen who wishes to stay in France for more than three months must hold one of the following residence documents:
The same reservation at the point where the code imposes the duty to hold a residence document. A person covered by an agreement is outside the list that follows.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Sous réserve des engagements internationaux de la France et des exceptions prévues aux articles L. 412-2 et L. 412-3, la première délivrance d'une carte de séjour temporaire ou d'une carte de séjour pluriannuelle est subordonnée à la production par l'étranger du visa de long séjour mentionné aux 1° ou 2° de l'article L. 411-1.»And again at the long-stay visa requirement, which is the condition most often decisive for a first application.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Les articles L. 436-1 à L. 436-5 sont applicables, selon les cas, à la demande, à la délivrance, au renouvellement et à la fourniture de duplicata des titres de séjour et des documents de circulation pour étrangers mineurs prévus par les traités ou accords internationaux, sauf stipulations contraires prévues par ces traités ou accords.»The taxes reach titles created by treaty, unless the treaty says otherwise. The code applies itself to agreement-based titles by default and lets the agreement displace it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The official consolidated text of French codes and statutes. Each code has a stable address built from a LEGITEXT identifier, and the page offers the whole code as a PDF under 'Telecharger le code', which is the only form that carries the text of the articles.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The domain is behind a bot challenge and answers 403 to every request this project makes, including to the PDF endpoint its own page links to - so every reading here was downloaded by a person in a browser and stored as `manual-read`, and cannot be refreshed by running a command. A browser is not reliable either: one page saved by hand came back as the challenge itself, 5,883 bytes titled 'Just a moment...'. The code page at /codes/texte_lc/ carries only the plan, article numbers in a list with no text, so a reader following a citation to it will not find the quoted words there and has to take the PDF. The PDF states its own two dates on the last line, the last modification and the day it was generated, and the cut-off recorded against a quotation is the first of those. What is not here at all is practice: French immigration decisions rest heavily on circulaires and on prefectural discretion, and neither is published in the code.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
No bilateral agreement was read for this country. Where a reader is told that a particular nationality is governed by an agreement rather than by the CESEDA, this is the provision that makes that possible - and the agreement itself is the thing to read.
This matters most where the agreement is older than the code. A title created by an agreement and a title created by the CESEDA can bear the same name and carry different conditions, and article L. 436-6 shows the code expects exactly that.