ROLES, FUNDING AND STATE
OVERSIGHT OF ASSOCIATIONS
INVOLVED IN IMMIGRATION
AND INTEGRATION POLICY
Communication to the Senate Finance Committee
February 2025
2
Executive Summary
This investigation was carried out at the request of the Chairman of the Senate’s Finance
Committee, as set out in a letter dated 1 January 2024, on the basis of Article 58-2 of the
Organic Law of 1 August 2001 on budget acts.
It covers the financial years 2019 to 2023, for mainland France and the overseas
territories. In order to avoid duplication with the Court's recent investigation into relations
between the State and accommodation providers
1
, the scope of the investigation was limited
to the social support and integration actions of associations funded by the Immigration, Asylum
and Integration programme. It aims to draw up a map of the schemes and funding implemented
by these associations and also analyses the steering, monitoring and control exercised by the
State for the implementation of these actions.
The State relies on associations to implement asylum and integration
policies for foreign communities
The schemes implemented for foreign communities differ according to the profile of the
latter. New arrivals wishing to settle permanently in the country, including refugees, benefit
from initiatives to integrate them into society. A specific programme is implemented, which
takes the form of the signing of a Republican Integration Contract (
Contrat d’intégration
républicaine
,
CIR
). Foreign nationals must then undergo civic training to assimilate the values
of the Republic, which consists of four days. If they do not have level A1 in French, they are
also expected to undergo language training, which varies in duration between 100 and 600
hours.
Asylum seekers, for their part, receive support with the process of obtaining international
protection, either via their reception centre or through specific facilities if they are not in
accommodation.
As well as the training they receive within the framework of the CIR, applicants who
obtain refugee status have access to enhanced support, focused on access to housing and
employment.
Finally, the administration can restrict the freedom of movement of foreign nationals in
an irregular situation, while arranging for their removal, by placing them in secure detention
centres. These individuals, whose number fell from 50,486 to 40,056 between 2019 and 2023,
may nevertheless have access to legal assistance in their administrative detention centre.
Asylum and integration policies are steered by the General Directorate for Foreign
Nationals (DGEF) of the Ministry of the Interior, with the support of its decentralised
departments (prefectures) and its agencies (the French Office for Immigration and Integration
(OFII) and the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA)).
These various actors rely on associations to work directly with asylum seekers, refugees and
other foreign nationals who are new arrivals from countries outside the European Union. The
policies are primarily aimed at providing accommodation.
1
Cour des Comptes,
Les relations entre l'État et les gestionnaires d'hébergement
, October 2024.
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Funding for associations: rising expenses, only partly explained by the
change in the flows of foreign nationals
The funding allocated under the
Immigration, Asylum and Integration
programme is
intended to fund measures for asylum seekers and refugees (programme 303), as well as
integration initiatives for new arrivals (programme 104). It increased by 23 % between 2019
and 2023 to reach €2.3 billion, mainly for new expenditure in the field of asylum: €1.7 billion
for programme 303 and €536.1 million for programme 104.
Expenditure on support for asylum seekers and refugees is included in the funding for
accommodation places and is not monitored as such. The Court's estimate of the funding
allocated to associations in this respect was €263 million in 2023, an increase of 45.5% since
2019. Although the flows in question explain a part of this increase, it also results from the
growth in the unit cost of services.
An assessment of the overall social support costs per funded accommodation place for
one year during the period under review was carried out. In 2023, these costs amounted to
more than €3,000, an increase of 36% compared to 2019. The social support offered to non-
housed asylum seekers was estimated at €16 million in 2023, representing an annual cost of
€148.4 per person.
In the field of integration, associations were the beneficiaries of more than 57 % of the
expenditure to implement the Republican Integration Contract in 2023. In that year, they
received €76.3 million, an increase of more than 114% compared to 2019, due to the combined
effect of the doubling of the hourly volume of the training courses offered and the increase in
the number of CIR signatories. The overall cost per signatory was also estimated, amounting
to €1,032 in 2023, an increase of 68 % compared to 2019.
Finally, there are other funds allocated to integration, at the discretion of the DGEF and
the prefectures, which represent a significant and growing share of expenditure. In 2023, for
example, spending reached €86.5 million, an increase of 121% compared to 2019, of which
€60.3 million was devolved funding.
The sharp increases in unit costs observed vary according to the type of support or
training and are the result of several phenomena such as, in the linguistic field, the more
intensive nature of the services offered and a change in the composition of the beneficiaries,
with an increase in the proportion of those requesting more extensive support. The rise in costs
is also driven by the lack of competition between service providers, who have historically been
present in specific parts of the country.
The roles of the associations: services requiring more precise definition in
the field of asylum and better coordination in the field of integration
Whether or not individuals are housed, an analysis of the various specifications and calls
for projects defining the expected service shows that the State and its operator, the OFII, do
not define clearly enough the nature of the support roles, the skills required, or, in
accommodation facilities, the staff-to-resident ratio needed to deliver them. In particular, there
is no common frame of reference for support.
As with accommodation, the use of grants - when this form of financial relationship is
applied - gives the State less control over the content and monitoring of service delivery; this
situation should improve through the gradual conversion of certain facilities into social and
medico-social establishments and services.
Furthermore, in the field of integration, the services offered under the CIR and those
funded in the prefectures through decentralised funding under programme 104 may concern
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the same target groups, for the same purposes, due to a lack of sufficient coordination between
the decentralised departments and the regional branches of the OFII.
Finally, the nature of the voluntary sector means that, in some areas and particularly in
the area of contracts awarded by the OFII, the low level of competition in some regions limits
the possibilities for controlling costs.
Unequal oversight mechanisms, which need to be strengthened
particularly in the area of asylum
The oversight of associations' responsibilities is carried out in different ways. For the
service providers working on its public contracts, the OFII has implemented a rigorous audit
methodology, both in the context of the Republican Integration Contract and the initial reception
of asylum seekers. On-site inspections are regularly organised for all services offered, and
follow a precisely defined procedure. Although these inspections may reveal a significant
proportion of non-compliant situations, they rarely result in penalties, as the OFII (French Office
for Immigration and Integration) usually considers that corrective measures have been applied
subsequently.
For operators providing accommodation for asylum seekers, the issues of management
and provision of places are closely monitored by the DGEF and the prefectures, while the
aspect relating to support services appears to be a lower priority. Accommodation providers,
as well as associations that receive decentralised integration funding, are subject to on-site
inspections only occasionally, and in a particularly informal manner in the case of support
services, which are poorly defined as mentioned above.
Finally, in the field of assessment, the DGEF has developed an interesting approach with
regard to the comprehensive support scheme for refugees' access to housing and employment
(AGIR) but it is too early to assess its impact. With regard to the CIR, the few assessments
carried out for cohorts prior to the implementation of the enhanced training in 2019 remain
inconclusive and will need to be updated following the reforms that have taken place or are
underway.
Part of the language support system is currently being reviewed to adapt to the new
framework established by the law of 26 January 2024, which will come into force by 1 January
2026 at the latest. Under current law, newly arrived foreign nationals must demonstrate regular
attendance at language courses and progress towards a beginner level in French in order to
obtain a multi-year residence permit. The new law imposes stricter conditions by making the
issuance of the first multi-year residence permit conditional on officially certified attainment of
an elementary user level in the language.
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Recommendations
1.
Improve the identification of potential candidates for the language and civic training contracts
under the Republican Integration Contract, and, if necessary, revise how the training lots are
structured to encourage competition (
OFII
).
2.
Develop a unified set of tasks to better regulate spending and the quality of social support for
individuals housed within the national reception system, and consider introducing an
appropriate pricing model (
ministry of the interior
).
3.
Establish clear and harmonised definitions of the skills required to support asylum seekers and
refugees, whether or not they are housed within the national reception system (
ministry of the
interior, OFII
).
4.
Improve the monitoring of social support activities provided by accommodation managers,
particularly in view of the upcoming rollout of new IT systems (
ministry of the interior
).
5.
Within programme 104, ensure consistency between the language and civic training funded
under the “Reception of newly arrived foreign nationals” measure and those funded under the
“Integration of newly arrived foreign nationals” measure (
ministry of the interior
).