Immigration: the building industry will have "difficulty functioning" without foreign labor according to CAPEB

"We have always needed recruitment and I hope that we will need it since studies on energy renovation require the creation of 200.000 to 300.000 jobs within five to ten years," estimated Jean-Christophe Repon, president of the Confederation of Crafts and Small Building Companies (Capeb) on Radio Classique.

"And so, inevitably, we will need foreign labour. Let's stop getting excited about immigration issues. The construction sector has always integrated migratory flows, has always assimilated migratory flows," he added.

And even in a slowdown phase, as is currently the case, the construction sector "will have difficulty functioning" without foreign labor, Mr. Repon stressed, since we have "an age pyramid that is not very favorable" and "we need attractiveness in our professions."

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who has made the fight against immigration his priority, demands in his new circular addressed to prefects that they put an end to "regularisations on a large scale" with immediate application.

Although the text does not strictly speaking change the criteria for obtaining this "exceptional admission to stay" (AES), this tightening of the screw puts an end to the circular of his predecessor Manuel Valls which left room for maneuver to the prefects and could resolve certain situations by deviating from the classic rules of regularization.

Exceptional regularizations through work are now refocused on professions in tension, the updated list of which is expected at the end of February.