One Book of the Code for Union Citizens, and It Starts by Saying They Need No Permit
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Grenada on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
147 exceptions recorded across 54 countries · none match Grenada to France · Residency under a regional treaty
France keeps free movement in a book of its own. Book II of the CESEDA governs the entry, stay and removal of Union citizens, of the foreigners treated as such, and of their family members - and article L. 110-4 says the other books apply to them only in the conditions book II sets. Article L. 200-3 extends the regime to nationals of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, and to Swiss nationals, naming all four. Article L. 231-1 then states the rule a reader came for: Union citizens are not required to hold a residence permit, though one is issued if they ask. Up to three months the only conditions are those for entry, so long as the person does not become an unreasonable burden on the social assistance system. Beyond three months article L. 233-1 asks for one of three things - working, or sufficient resources plus sickness insurance, or enrolment in study with insurance and resources - and third-country family members get a right of residence of their own under article L. 233-2. Five years of lawful and uninterrupted residence gives a permanent right of residence under article L. 234-1, and a third-country family member then receives a ten-year card renewed as of right.
At a glance
- Residence permit
- Not required; issued on request
CESEDA article L. 231-1.
- Who the regime covers besides Union citizens
- Nationals of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, and nationals of Switzerland
CESEDA article L. 200-3, which names all four.
- Stay of up to three months
- No condition or formality beyond those for entry
CESEDA article L. 232-1, so long as the person does not become an unreasonable burden on the social assistance system.
- Stay beyond three months
- Work, or sufficient resources plus sickness insurance, or study with both
CESEDA article L. 233-1, which states them as alternatives.
- Family members
- Spouse, direct descendants under twenty-one or dependent, and dependent direct ascendants
CESEDA article L. 200-4. Descendants and ascendants of the spouse count too.
- Permanent residence
- Five years of lawful and uninterrupted residence
CESEDA article L. 234-1. A third-country family member who has lived those five years with the citizen gets a ten-year card renewed as of right.
- Which book of the code applies
- Book II, and the others only as book II provides
CESEDA article L. 110-4.
- The employer's tax
- Employers of Union citizens are exempt
CESEDA article L. 436-10, which names the Union citizens of article L. 233-4 among the exemptions.
Requirements
- Nationality of a Union member state, of Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, or of Switzerland
- For a stay beyond three months: work, or sufficient resources with sickness insurance, or study with both
- For a family member who is not a Union citizen: accompanying or joining a Union citizen who meets those conditions
Country-level policy
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.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Grenada
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«Sans préjudice du droit de l'Union européenne, le livre II du présent code régit l'entrée, le séjour et l'éloignement des citoyens de l'Union européenne, des étrangers qui leur sont assimilés ainsi que des étrangers membres de leur famille ou entretenant avec eux des liens privés et familiaux.»The partition. Book II governs Union citizens and their families; the rest of the code reaches them only where book II lets 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.
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«Pour l'application du présent livre, et dans les conditions qu'il prévoit, les ressortissants des Etats, non membres de l'Union européenne, parties à l'accord sur l'Espace économique européen, ainsi que les ressortissants de la Confédération suisse, sont assimilés aux citoyens de l'Union européenne. Outre les ressortissants de la Confédération suisse, les ressortissants mentionnés au premier alinéa sont ceux de la République d'Islande, de la Principauté du Liechtenstein et du Royaume de Norvège.»The reach of the regime beyond the Union, with the three Economic Area states and Switzerland named.
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.
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«Les citoyens de l'Union européenne ne sont pas tenus de détenir un titre de séjour. Toutefois, s'ils en font la demande, il leur en est délivré un.»Our translation - not official
Citizens of the European Union are not required to hold a residence permit. However, if they request one, it is issued to them.
No permit, and a permit on request. Both halves matter: the document is available to anyone who wants proof of their status.
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
«Tant qu'ils ne deviennent pas une charge déraisonnable pour le système d'assistance sociale mentionné par la directive 2004/38 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 29 avril 2004 relatif au droit des citoyens de l'Union et des membres de leurs familles de circuler et de séjourner librement sur le territoire des Etats membres, les citoyens de l'Union européenne ainsi que les membres de leur famille, tels que définis aux articles L. 200-4 et L. 200-5 et accompagnant ou rejoignant un citoyen de l'Union européenne, ont le droit de séjourner en France pour une durée maximale de trois mois, sans autre condition ou formalité que celles prévues pour l'entrée sur le territoire français.»Three months on entry conditions alone, qualified by the unreasonable-burden test the Directive supplies.
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 citoyens de l'Union européenne ont le droit de séjourner en France pour une durée supérieure à trois mois s'ils satisfont à l'une des conditions suivantes : 1° Ils exercent une activité professionnelle en France ; 2° Ils disposent pour eux et pour leurs membres de famille de ressources suffisantes afin de ne pas devenir une charge pour le système d'assistance sociale, ainsi que d'une assurance maladie ; 3° Ils sont inscrits dans un établissement fonctionnant conformément aux dispositions législatives et réglementaires en vigueur pour y suivre à titre principal des études ou, dans ce cadre, une formation professionnelle, et garantissent disposer d'une assurance maladie ainsi que de ressources suffisantes pour eux et pour leurs conjoints ou descendants directs à charge qui les accompagnent ou les rejoignent, afin de ne pas devenir une charge pour le système d'assistance sociale ;»The three grounds for staying longer than three months. Sickness insurance appears in two of them and not in the first.
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 ressortissants de pays tiers, membres de famille d'un citoyen de l'Union européenne satisfaisant aux conditions énoncées aux 1° ou 2° de l'article L. 233-1, ont le droit de séjourner sur le territoire français pour une durée supérieure à trois mois. Il en va de même pour les ressortissants de pays tiers, conjoints ou descendants directs à charge accompagnant ou rejoignant un citoyen de l'Union européenne satisfaisant aux conditions énoncées au 3° de l'article L. 233-1.»The third-country family member's own right of residence, derived from the citizen's.
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 citoyens de l'Union européenne mentionnés à l'article L. 233-1 qui ont résidé de manière légale et ininterrompue en France pendant les cinq années précédentes acquièrent un droit au séjour permanent sur l'ensemble du territoire français. Les ressortissants de pays tiers, membres de famille, acquièrent également un droit au séjour permanent sur l'ensemble du territoire français à condition qu'ils aient résidé en France de manière légale et ininterrompue pendant les cinq années précédentes avec le citoyen de l'Union européenne mentionné au premier alinéa. Une carte de séjour d'une durée de validité de dix ans renouvelable de plein droit leur est délivrée.»Five years to a permanent right of residence, and the ten-year card for the family member who has lived them alongside.
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
«Par membre de famille d'un citoyen de l'Union européenne, on entend le ressortissant étranger, quelle que soit sa nationalité, qui relève d'une des situations suivantes : 1° Conjoint du citoyen de l'Union européenne ; 2° Descendant direct âgé de moins de vingt-et-un ans du citoyen de l'Union européenne ou de son conjoint ; 3° Descendant direct à charge du citoyen de l'Union européenne ou de son conjoint ; 4° Ascendant direct à charge du citoyen de l'Union européenne ou de son conjoint.»Who counts as family. Descendants under twenty-one are in without a dependency test; ascendants are in only if dependent.
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
The right comes from the Treaty and from Directive 2004/38/EC; the CESEDA records it. Article L. 200-2 says so expressly, pointing at articles 20 and 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Nothing here covers removal of a Union citizen, which book II also governs and which was not read.
- consolidatesCode de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile, consolidated text last modified 27 August 2026
Legifrance, Direction de l'information legale et administrative · consolidated to 2026-08-27
Known to be out of date. The address cited is the code's plan: it lists article numbers without their text, so a reader following it will not find the quoted words on that page and has to take the whole-code PDF offered under "Telecharger le code". Legifrance answers 403 to every request this project can make, including to that PDF, so the reading behind these quotations was downloaded by a person in a browser and cannot be refreshed by running a command. The PDF prints its own two dates on its last line - last modified and generated - and the cut-off recorded here is the first of them.
About 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