The notoriously glitchy and bug-ridden ANEF website – used by foreigners in France to get or renew residency permits – must be fixed ‘within six months’, the French Conseil d’Etat has ordered.
The Conseil d’Etat – the highest authority on state matters – issued its ruling on Tuesday in response to a legal challenge brought by a collection of charities and organisations representing immigrants in France.
The government must “rectify the malfunctions” associated with the platform within six months, according to a ruling issued on Tuesday, May 5th which was seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Administration Numérique pour les étrangers en France (ANEF) website is used to request or renew most, but not all, types of carte de séjour residency permit in France. It is also used to request French citizenship for people applying by residency (par décret).
Since its introduction in 2020, foreigners in France have reported scores of problems with the site ranging from bugs and technical glitches to more structural problems about how to submit applications.
READ ALSO: The main problems foreigners in France face with ANEF admin site
Around a dozen associations brought the case to the Conseil d’Etat, which ruled in their favour, telling the government to “rectify the malfunctions affecting” access to residency permit applications made by foreign nationals, considering that they “are such as to unduly restrict users’ right of access or to compromise the exercise by them of the rights recognised by law”.
The ruling added: “Whilst the Minister of the Interior has already introduced several measures to improve access to ANEF . . . the operation of this service is subject to malfunctions that seriously affect the exercise of certain rights by applicants for residency permits.”
As well as ordering the government to fix the bugs within six months, the Conseil also specified several changes to the way the site operates.
The ruling stresses that it must be possible to submit several applications for residency permits simultaneously on different grounds, which is currently impossible until the authorities have ruled on the first application.
“The authorities must update this online service within twelve months”, it warns.
The Council of State also notes that it must be possible to supplement and correct one’s application, particularly when a renewal of a residence permit is wrongly refused due to a failure by the authorities to register it.
It points out that “such delays can have significant consequences for the right of residence and the examination of the application”.
READ ALSO: ‘Lives and livelihoods are on the line’ – readers speak out on carte de séjour delays in France
Since residency permit applications began moving online to the ANEF platform in 2020, complaints about the delivery of cartes de séjour have increased by 400 percent.
Rights organisations have accused the French administration of “creating undocumented people” through such long delays in dealing with applications.
The Défenseur des Droits in its annual report revealed that 45 percent of its caseload is now make up of foreigners struggling with administrative delays, and 77 percent of those cases were about carte de séjour renewal.
The issue of long delays in renewing residency permits has been in the news recently, since the new Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced a plan to halve the delays in getting a carte de séjour.
READ ALSO: LATEST: How long does it take to renew a carte de séjour in France?
