Indicators: Treatment of Specific Nationalities
1. Are applications from specific nationalities considered manifestly well-founded? Yes No
If yes, specify which: Syria, Iraq
2. Are applications from specific nationalities considered manifestly unfounded?228 Yes No
If yes, specify which: Albania, Armenia, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Georgia, Ghana, India, FYROM, Kosovo, Mauritius, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Senegal, Serbia
Asylum seekers that are nationals of countries considered to be safe are dealt with most of the time under an accelerated procedure (in 90% of the cases) (see section on Safe Country Concepts).
224 Forum réfugiés-Cosi, Press release, Liste des « pays d’origine sûrs » : Forum Réfugiés – Cosi prend acte avec satisfaction du retrait de l’Ukraine (List of “safe countries of origin”: Forum Réfugiés – Cosi expresses satisfaction at the removal of Ukraine), 28 March 2014, available at: http://bit.ly/1geOY6y.
225 Decision of 16 December 2013 modifying the list of safe countries of origin (Décision du 16 décembre 2013 modifiant la liste des pays d'origine sûrs), JORF n°0301 of 28 December 2013, available at:
http://bit.ly/1LI8R1H, 26152.
226 Council of State, Forum réfugiés-Cosi and Others v OFPRA, Decision n° 375474 and 375920, 10 October 2014, available at: http://bit.ly/1JCEIS5.
227 Ministry of Interior, Information Note INTV1424567N of 17 October 2014.
228 Whether under the “safe country of origin” concept or otherwise.
67 Moreover, according to OFPRA, following the withdrawal of Bangladesh from the list of safe countries of origin, these asylum applications have been treated under the “last in, first out” principle which meant that the average period for their examination was of 91 days after May 2013.
Furthermore, according to the practical observations of many actors in the field of asylum in France, the processing of asylum claims for people of Rwandan nationality can take a particularly long time.
Until 2014, Syrian asylum seekers did not get any specific treatment in France. However, since 2014, with their number increasing throughout the EU, including in France where they were the 5th country of origin of asylum seekers in 2014, and the specific attention they get from EU institutions and Member States, their claims tend to be processed quicker. OFPRA’s objective is to process Syrian asylum claims within 3 months. In order to achieve this goal, claims from Syrian nationals are prioritised. The average time for their examination was 93 days at the end of 2014 (against an average of 204 days for all nationalities). Protection was granted by OFPRA to asylum seekers from Syria in 1,404 instances in 2014, which amounts to a recognition rate of 96%. This rate is to be compared to the average recognition rate of 16.9% for all OFPRA decisions.229 According to OFPRA’s annual report for 2014,230 63% of Syrian nationals who were granted protection benefitted from refugee status under the Geneva Convention while 37% of them obtained subsidiary protection.
It is worth noting that France did not see a very high level of arrivals of Syrian asylum seekers231 in 2015 and 2014 in comparison to other European countries. There is nevertheless a striking increase of twice the number of applicants from Syria in 2014 compared to 2012 as only 637 and 119 asylum claims had been lodged by Syrian nationals in 2012 and 2011 respectively. The French authorities have not designed any special status for Syrian applicants whose asylum applications are rejected. There is no official position with regards to returns to Syria (no moratorium) but there have been no return of Syrian nationals to Syria from France in recent years.232
In addition, at its first 2015 ministerial meeting, the government declared that, in 2014, 500 Syrian refugees in a situation of extreme vulnerability coming from neighbouring countries of Syria had benefitted from a special resettlement programme.233 The ad hoc programme for the resettlement of Syrian refugees has been renewed for 2015 and France should receive 500 more Syrian this year.234 As far as Iraqi nationals are concerned, on 14 August 2014, the Ministry of the Interior sent an Information Note to the Prefects regarding a specific reception scheme for Iraqis belonging to religious minorities.235 The selection criteria were that those persons should be personally persecuted or threatened for religious reasons, be in a situation of extreme vulnerability and have strong links with France. According to this Note, two types of long term visas could be granted by the French consular and diplomatic services in Bagdad and Erbil, including long term visas enabling the persons concerned to apply to asylum in France if they wish so. Once on French territory, their asylum application is examined with a short delay and they are allowed to work and receive social benefits. At its first 2015
229 OFPRA, 2014 Activity report, 10 April 2015.
230 Ibid.
231 In this regard, it should be noted that a requirement for a specific transit airport visa (visa de transit aéroportuaire) (VTA) is applied to Syrians. In a decision of 18 June 2014, the Council of State, seized by NGOs GISTI and ANAFE, confirmed the obligation for Syrians, to possess a VTA in order to transit through French airports. The Council of State recalled that this obligation, which applies to certain third country nationals, was “linked to public order requirements aimed at avoiding, at a stop over or at a connecting flight, the abuse of transit for the sole purpose of entering France”. The Council of State considered that this obligation applied to Syrians “did not constitute in itself a breach of the right of asylum nor a breach of the right to life or of the protection against inhuman or degrading treatment”. See Council of State, Decision n°
366307, 18 June 2014, available at: http://bit.ly/1eptYsB.
232 However, there have been returns to Italy for instance under readmission procedures or Dublin procedures.
233 La Croix, ‘L’an dernier, la France a donné refuge à plus de 1 200 Irakiens’, 6 January 2015.
234 Forum réfugiés-Cosi and France terre d’asile, Report on resettlement in France, SHARE Project, August 2015, available in France at: http://bit.ly/1Q2BIjc.
235 Ministry of Interior, Note d’information, 14 août 2014, NOR: INTV1419824N, available in French at:
http://bit.ly/1VyM89X.
68 ministerial meeting, the government declared that, since 1 August 2014, French authorities had admitted 1,277 such persons under this programme, among which 800 had reached French territory by the end of January 2015.236
In April 2015, OFPRA protection officers conducted two missions in Lebanon and Jordan, to process asylum claims from 400 Syrian refugees before they were resettled to France.237 Moreover, an OFPRA mission to Calais in May 2015 targeted Eritrean nationals (see section on Regular Procedure: Fast-Track Processing).
236 La Croix, “L’an dernier, la France a donné refuge à plus de 1 200 Irakiens”, 6 January 2015, available in French at: http://bit.ly/1Z12EE3.
237 OFPRA, Mission humanitaire pour les réfugiés syriens, April 2015, available in French at:
http://bit.ly/1YYcSoV.