At “the core of the France brand”. The invention of "talent" visas and residence permits (France, 2006-2023)

Objectivized in visas and residence permits, “talent” is now an administrative category in several OECD countries, and notably in Europe. Such a category allows a derogation from common law for certain foreign workers, seen as socially and economically desirable (engineers, artists, scientists, etc.). As part of so-called "attractiveness" migration policies, these devices aim to facilitate the international mobility of these professionals by speeding up procedures and reducing administrative constraints. In France, the “skills and talents” card was introduced in 2006, before being replaced in 2016 by the "talent passport" –although it was never a “passport” in the administrative sense of the term. At the time of writing (late 2023), ongoing parliamentary debates (expected to be concluded by the workshop) are considering marginal amendments to the scheme, notably by renaming the card simply “talent”. Although the laws that introduced these residence permits are far from policies promoting immigration, being more concerned with restricting migratory flows to the greatest possible number, they nevertheless bear the mark of a genuine marketing concern, which can be seen first and foremost through a socio-historical analysis of the genesis of these residence permits and of the disagreements that surrounded the choice of name. A study of the legislative files for the French laws of 2006, 2016 and 2023, supplemented by online archives and interviews, shows that the name was not initially self-evident: on the contrary, it gave rise to intense and numerous debates, not only within the parliamentary chambers but also beyond. In particular, a “report on welcoming foreign talent”, written by senior civil servants and dating from 2013, put forward several competing names, defending the primacy of bureaucratic reason over marketing reason, while at the same time partly adopting the latter –by proposing to make “talent” the “core of the France brand”. The trial-and-error search for a desirable title for a desired population thus appears central to the design of the scheme, which constitutes a policy to promote immigration that is ultimately less material than symbolic.