France

Country Report

Country Report: France Last updated: 08/04/22

Author

Forum Réfugiés – Cosi Visit Website

The 2021 update of this report was written by Laurent Delbos at Forum réfugiés – Cosi and edited by ECRE.

Forum réfugiés-Cosi wishes to thank all those individuals and organisations who shared their expertise to contribute or check the information gathered during the research. Particular thanks are owed to many Forum réfugiés-Cosi colleagues who have shared their practical experience on the right of asylum in France – which have been key to feed concrete reality-checks and observations into this report; to the two lawyers who have taken the time to share their views on the French system; to the staff of France terre d’asile, the Anafé and the UNHCR Paris office for their expert and constructive feedback provided for the initial report and finally to ECRE for its support throughout the drafting process. Forum réfugiés-Cosi would also like to thank the European Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) for co-financing its awareness-raising missions which allowed us to provide additional time to research and draft this report.

The findings presented in this report stem from background desk research, interviews with field practitioners and lawyers, as well as feedback from French NGOs and finally statistics shared by the French authorities.

Caveat: In France, asylum policies – including reception procedures – are largely under prefectural execution. This review of practice is mostly based on observations in the departments of Ile de France, Rhône, Puy-de-Dôme, Haute-Garonne and Alpes-Maritimes. However, the conclusions presented in this report on the concrete implementation of asylum policies have been cross-checked and triangulated with observations of these practices in other regions and are supported by findings presented in other reports – be they official or drafted by civil society organisations.

The information in this report is up-to-date as of 31 December 2021, unless otherwise stated.

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To access the updated report, you can navigate through the table of contents on the right end side or download the full report (in PDF) above.

Table of contents

  • Statistics
  • Overview of the legal framework
  • Overview of the main changes since the previous report update
  • Asylum Procedure
  • Reception Conditions
  • Detention of Asylum Seekers
  • Content of International Protection
  • ANNEX I – Transposition of the CEAS in national legislation