Immigration has placed a financial strain on France, rather than delivering economic benefits, costing the nation an estimated 3.4% of its GDP, according to the Observatory of Immigration and Demography (OID).
The think tank reports that taxes collected from immigrants cover only 86% of their cost to taxpayers, as just 62.4% of working-age immigrants are employed, below the EU average of 67.5% and lower than France’s native employment rate of 69.5%. Only Belgium fares worse. OID estimates that matching native employment rates would raise France’s GDP by 3.4% and increase taxable income by 1.5 percentage points.
“Immigration maintains a vicious circle which harms employment and the French economy: it aggravates the structural problems of employment in France, degrades public accounts and indirectly penalizes exposed sectors of the economy,” said Observatory of Immigration and Demography director Nicolas Pouvreau-Monti.
OID’s director noted that public debate on immigration often focuses on short-term labor shortages in sectors like hospitality and construction. However, this narrow view ignores the need to make such jobs more appealing to job seekers. OID’s founder added that immigration tends to bring in low-skilled rather than high-skilled workers who drive innovation. As a result, the economic strain and lost growth force the government to raise taxes on businesses, further burdening the economy.
Pouvreau-Monti asserted: “In other words, encouraging immigration to avoid shortages in certain sectors in tension amounts to sacrificing the growth of our strategic sectors for the benefit of only a few corporate interests.”
The OID attributes France’s low migrant employment rate to its focus on family reunification—more than any other European country—rather than labor-based immigration. Director Pouvreau-Monti noted that migrants who do not seek work from the start struggle more with integration. More concerning, the trend extends to second-generation immigrants: 24% of young people born in France to immigrant parents were not in employment, education, or training in 2020–2021—the second highest rate in Europe, behind only Belgium.
The OID report links low labor market integration among migrants to rising ethnic sectarianism in France and Belgium, citing increased self-segregation of migrant communities. The findings come as Europe reevaluates the long-held belief that mass immigration drives economic growth.
