The new French government has annulled a controversial measure that imposed stiff visa restrictions on foreign students and graduates, as the newly elected president, François Hollande, had promised to do during his election campaign.

The move to abandon the so-called Guéant circular, named for the interior minister who introduced it, was to take place a year to the day after it came into force, and the “new circular is understood to tell the relevant officials not to deport students whose temporary right to stay has run out and to speed up the handling of requests for working papers,” RFI reports.

The original policy had “caused a storm of opposition from students’ unions, immigrants’ rights groups, and employers when it was issued,” according to RFI, and the previous government had already backed down from some of its most restrictive provisions.

France’s main student union welcomed the repeal but said in a statement on its Web site that the move alone was not sufficient and that it would continue to campaign for other measures to improve conditions for foreign students in France.