France has never recorded such a figure. In 2024, 147,154 foreigners in an irregular situation were arrested on the territory. An absolute record. An increase of 19 % in one year. A spectacular leap that confirms a substantive trend, started for a decade. Only COVID parenthesis had momentarily slowed down the phenomenon.
This figure is already dizzying. But this is only the visible part of the iceberg. Because people arrested are just a minority. The actual number of illegal immigrants in France is estimated between 800,000 and 900,000. Remember: nearly a million people living outside the radars of the Republic. It is the equivalent of the city of Marseille. Or, to better measure the magnitude: the Combined Total of Nice, Nantes and Bordeaux.
« It is an invisible recomposition of the country, which advances without a vote ”
We talk little about it, because it bothers. Because it forces you to face the truth. And yet, this silent explosion upsets everything: school, hospital, housing, security, national cohesion. This figure is a political deflagration. And he emanates from the Ministry of the Interior himself, as an admission of helplessness: France no longer controls what is happening on its own soil.
A generalized laissez
It is an invisible recomposition of the country, which advances without vote, without debate, without consent. A repetition suffered which settles, district by district, in the back of law and democracy. 147,154 arrests, nearly a million illegal immigrants. And a certainty: France no longer masters flows.
We can talk about statistics. Multiply Excel tables. Count the OQTF, the visas, the expulsions. But behind the figures, there are streets, schools, police stations. There are French people. And there is a social reality that cracks everywhere.
Mass immigration, especially when it is out of control, is not an ideological concept. It is a concrete mechanics. A mechanics that flu the public services, which disorganizes local balances, which exacerbates social tensions. Everywhere in France, teachers sound the alarm. Saturated classes, where a third of the students do not speak French. Ghettoized establishments, where assimilation has been given up.
Same observation in the hospital. Overwhelmed emergencies, under-effective maternities, queues that lie down. And always the same polished lie: it is not the fault of immigration. Of course if. This is not the only cause, but it is a direct, daily, massive pressure on a health system already out of breath.
And what about security? Thousands of illegal immigrants under OQTF circulate freely. Some multi -registered, other radicalized. The law provides for their expulsion. But the state does not apply it. And the French see, in their city, in their building, that the rule is no longer worth.
« What comes is not only a crisis. It is a slow but deep destabilization “
Real is it. It is not a fantasized fear. It is a lived disorder. It is an increasingly shared experience. While the elites speak of humanity, the real country experiences generalized social insecurity. A two -speed France: one that undergoes, the other which theorizes. And in the middle, a fracture that continues to expand.
The political class looks elsewhere
The bomb is there. Laid for years. Ignored, moved, minimized. But she continues to tick. And at each new migratory record, the countdown is approaching zero. Even last year, regular immigration increased: 4.3 million foreigners legally reside in France. Or an increase of 4 % in one year. France attracts. France welcomes. But she no longer chooses
We are told about evictions: 12,856 people actually distant in 2024. But out of 147,154 illegal immigrants, this represents less than 9 %. The rest ? Dissolved in the mass. Left in nature. And during this time, the country is transformed. Not according to a political will. But according to generalized laissez-faire, where migratory flows become more powerful than laws. Where we no longer master anything.
What comes is not only a crisis. It is a slow but deep destabilization: identity, economic, territorial. There is no longer any possible national unit without migration control. Because no model is resistant to the accumulation of fractures.
The political class looks elsewhere. She prefers to speak of symbols, social debates, moraline. But while she discharges, the pressure cooker rises in pressure. It will not necessarily explode tomorrow. But it already explodes at low noise, in schools, cities, abandoned countryside. The migratory fact is now the matrix of all French tensions. And we continue to pretend the subject should remain taboo. While it is central. It is vital. And it is urgent.
Because a bomb is defused. Or it explodes.
