Zone Franche is the World Music network: more than 240 organisations based in France and across some twenty countries, united by a conviction that the free movement of artists and professionals is the foremost prerequisite for the realisation of cultural diversity.
Since 2009, Zone Franche has led the Artists’ Visas Committee. This informal platform, which brings together the major professional organisations in the performing arts sector, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, is approached by professionals when an artist invited to France faces a visa refusal or a delay in obtaining their residence permit.
Over the course of three years, the resolution rate for issues encountered by foreign artists and professionals supported by the Artists’ Visas Committee has almost halved, falling from 70.6% in 2022 to 38.2% in 2025. And these issues do not affect people at random: 71.4% of cases referred to the committee concern African artists and professionals.
This report – ‘The Deterioration in the Reception of Foreign Artists and Professionals in France – Findings, Factors, Consequences and Recommendations’ – puts this material into perspective for the first time, cross-referencing it with statistics from the European Commission, the Ministry of the Interior and the Defender of Rights. What it reveals is not merely a perception within the sector: it is a measurable, ongoing deterioration, distributed very unevenly across different countries of origin.
Going beyond this assessment, the report puts forward 14 recommendations: most of them support changes already underway, many can be implemented under existing legislation, and none exceed the state’s resources.
On the Move contributed to this report, together with members (including MobiCulture) and partners.
