Late on 11 June 2026, just hours before the European pact came into force, France’s Directorate-General for Foreign Nationals (DGEF) released a comprehensive implementation circular (NOR INTV2615721C). The 40-page document, distributed to prefectures, OFPRA, OFII, border police and administrative courts, spells out which provisions of the Code de l’Entrée et du Séjour des Étrangers et du Droit d’Asile (CESEDA) are now superseded by directly applicable EU regulations—and which national articles remain in force. Key operational take-aways include a new national “single-file” procedure that merges the current four asylum application forms into one; mandatory use of the EU Screening Regulation’s risk-assessment template at land borders with Spain and Italy; and an express 48-hour deadline for prefectures to enter return decisions into the SIS when a short-stay visa overstay is detected. Prefects are told to give priority to cases that could trigger relocation quotas, especially Syrians, Afghans and Eritreans entering via Roissy CDG. For corporate mobility teams, the circular clarifies that employees holding Talent Passport or ICT permits are unaffected, but accompanying family members who have not yet received residence cards will now have their fingerprints taken at the border even if they arrive from another Schengen state. Companies hosting interns or secondees on ‘‘Passeport Talent – Détaché ICT’’ permits must also retain evidence of adequate housing for at least one year, in line with the new Reception Conditions Regulation. The guidance dedicates a full annex to litigation strategy, warning government lawyers that failure to apply the correct EU regulation will lead to annulment. It also urges prefectures to “anticipate a peak of emergency injunctions” and prepare multilingual notification templates so that removal orders stand up in court. Although the circular is internal, the Interior Ministry published it online “in the interest of transparency.” Immigration lawyers praise the move but note that much depends on prefectural staffing and IT readiness: “Rules on paper are one thing; rolling scanners out to every land post at 2 a.m. is another,” says Me Julie Aknin of Paris Bar.
