Now it is over, there is no way for foreigners to slip through the judicial cracks. In theory, the ones who fall into the hands of the police now have little hope but to claim political asylum or be expelled after 12 days in custody, during which they can appoint a lawyer.
Appeals are unlikely to be successful, especially where single males are concerned.
No figures are available yet for forcible expulsions since the end-May deadline, but immigrant pressure groups say that thousands of people have effectively gone into hiding. Also now hitting the headlines is the issue of double jeopardy, double peine in French. If an illegal is imprisoned for a crime committed on French soil, they are expelled after serving their sentence. This is in potential contradiction of two clauses of the European Convention on Human Rights. In May, ten Algerians and Tunisians went on a successful hunger strike against this form of deportation.