This week a story caught our attention: the story of an American immigrant in France who has been in the country for six years, rent an apartment in central Paris, have always worked and paid her taxes until she was sent a deportation letter, an « obligation to leave French territory within one month »…

Selected sentences from the English version of the article posted on French News website Rue89:

After graduating, I was offered a position in a French company specialized in financial consulting. With this permanent contract, I got a residence permit for employees from the French immigration authorities, a permit that I have regularly renewed without any problems […] I had renewed the employee permit many times without any problems. My new contract was almost identical to previous contracts. I thought it would be automatically renewed. I was wrong […] I refuse to give in to such injustice. And I have no choice : my life in France is all I have. In the United States, in an economic crisis, I would be unemployed, without health insurance, depending on my parents, I cannot ask them to support me financially […] I love France, its culture, language, history, and its respect for human rights. In the United States, more and more, rights (health insurance, education, etc..) have to be bought : those who cannot afford to do so go into debt to survive. This is not the case in France.

The situation is weird, to be honest. We really hope everything will be back to ‘normal’ for this American woman living in France. It is a beautiful country indeed and despite the economic crisis we are facing, it still is (at least until now) a country with many advantages she enumerated in her letter.

On the other side, the French immigration authorities can sometimes (too often?) be overzealous, as we know other people who have been sent the same kind of deportation letter…