France

Country Report

Country Report: France Last updated: 11/05/23

Author

Forum Réfugiés Visit Website

The 2022 update of this report was written by Laurent Delbos, Elena Wolf and Laurène Delage at Forum réfugiés and edited by ECRE.

Forum réfugiés wishes to thank all those individuals and organisations who have shared their expertise to contribute to or check the information gathered during the research. Particular thanks are owed to many Forum réfugiés 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 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 some departments. 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 2022, unless otherwise stated.

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