Author
| Name in English | Number of staff | Ministry responsible | Is there any political interference possible by the responsible Minister with the decision making in individual cases by the determining authority? |
| French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) | 1,011 | Ministry of Interior | Yes No |
Source: OFPRA.
OFPRA has three essential missions: It mission to examine applications for international protection on the basis of the Geneva conventions of July 28, 1951, and New York of September 28, 1954, and the Ceseda. It also has a legal and administrative protection mission for statutory refugees, statutory stateless persons, and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection. It has as well an advisory mission within the framework of the asylum procedure at the border as it gives an opinion to the Minister of the Interior on the manifestly founded character or not of a request for authorization to enter French territory for asylum purposes It is an administrative body falling under the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior and its institutional independence is explicitly laid down in law, which means that it does not take instructions from the Ministry of Interior.[1] In 2023, the budget of OFPRA was set at € 103.5 million and the Office included 1,011 staff members at the end of the year.[2] The OFPRA website states that there are approx. 450 protection officers in charge of the examination of asylum applications.[3] The budget law for 2024 provides for a budget of €107,9 million (1,028 staff members).
As regards its internal structure, OFPRA has different units dealing with different procedures as well as different asylum applicants. This includes a unit entitled “asylum at the border”. The asylum at the border unit only deals with applicants maintained in waiting zones. Applicants in detention centers (centres de retention administrative), in the process of removal from the French territory are assessed by geographical division, under an accelerated procedure (within 4 days). OFPRA also has five thematic groups (“groupes de référents thématiques”) each dealing with vulnerable applicants,[4] as will be explained further below. Thematic reference groups are not units as such. They are composed by agents belonging to geographical divisions, support divisions (COI and Legal Affairs) and the Protection Division.
The members are not in charge of assessing individual cases, but with advising, supporting, and training protection officers in charge of these cases. Geographical reference groups work the same way.
Another administrative arrangement visible in OFPRA relates to the units which are organised according to geographical criteria.[5]
Quality control and assurance
Following a 2013 action plan for the reform of OFPRA, an internal mechanism monitoring the quality of the decisions was put in place. It consists of an assessment of several sample cases. In addition, a “harmonisation committee”, chaired by the Executive Director, was created to harmonise the doctrine. Its tasks include monitoring the jurisprudence of the CNDA.[6]
An agreement was signed in 2013 between OFPRA’s Director General and the UNHCR Representative in France establishing a quality control mechanism and an evaluation grid with criteria regarding the three main stages of the examination of asylum cases: interview, assessment and decision. The objective is to consider useful measures to improve the quality of the decisions.
In this context, three evaluations were carried out by OFPRA and UNHCR in 2013, 2015 and 2017, based on representative samples of asylum decisions taken in 2013, 2014 and the first half of 2016 respectively. The results of the monitoring are available online.[7] Since then, there is no information as to whether another evaluation has been or will be conducted.
The latest report published in November 2018 contained mostly positive conclusions concerning interviews and decision-making at OFPRA. However, it also highlighted important shortcomings.[8]
Taking into account the results of these quality controls, regular trainings are provided to caseworkers, in particular regarding the interview, the assessment of proof and supportive documents and the reasoning of decisions taken. Trainings are provided in-house by OFPRA as well as a by the EUAA.[9]
In 2023, OFPRA reviewed its quality assurance processes in order to improve and broaden them. They are due to be applied from 2024, still in cooperation with UNHCR.[10]
In October 2023, about 200 OFPRA agents went on strike to oppose the figures policy aimed at shortening processing times to the detriment of the quality of instruction.[11]
Role of the Council of State in status determination
When the administration (OFPRA) rejects an asylum claim, a protection can be attributed in appeal by National court on asylum right (Cour nationale du droit d’asile – CNDA) which proceed to a new examination of the merits on the situation. If asylum claim is also rejected by CNDA, the applicant can refer the matter to the Council of State. However, this jurisdiction examines only if procedural guarantees and legal framework has been respected but it does not go back over the facts taken into account by CNDA. They can decide to send the case back to the CNDA or attribute himself a protection status.
However, outside of asylum proceedings and especially in expulsion proceedings when examining refoulement, the Council of State considers it may pronounce someone is a refugee or a beneficiary of subsidiary protection, although this does officially grant the status and rights attached, nor is it binding before the actual asylum authorities.[12]
[1] Article L. 121-7 Ceseda.
[2] Budget law 2023, Annex on immigration, asylum, integration, October 2022, available in French at: https://bit.ly/3XwtEOe.
[3] OFPRA, ‘Organisation – Les poles d’instruction’, available in French at: http://bit.ly/41ags42.
[4] OFPRA, ‘Organisation – Les divisions d’appui’, available in French at: http://bit.ly/3GJLhUW.
[5] For further information, see OFPRA, ‘Organisation – Les poles d’instruction’, available in French at: http://bit.ly/41ags42.
[6] See a description of the action plan for the reform of OFPRA, ‘2014 Activity report’, 10 April 2015, available in French at: http://bit.ly/419s2MY, 54-55.
[7] OFPRA, ‘Contrôle qualité: premier exercice d’évaluation’, September 2014, available in French at : https://bit.ly/47yPqq6; ‘Contrôle qualité: deuxième exercice d’évaluation’, May 2016, available online at : https://bit.ly/3SCng99; ‘Contrôle qualité: troisième exercice d’évaluation’, November 2018 (no longer online as of March 2023).
[8] For further details see AIDA, Country Report: France – 2021 Update, April 2022, available at: https://bit.ly/407wxpU.
[9] The last call for competition (public contract) for the provision of training for OFPRA agents was published in October 2023. Available in French at: https://bit.ly/3PxNszu.
[10] Information received from OFPRA on 16 May 2024
[11] Le Monde, ‘Droit d’asile : les agents de l’Ofpra appelés à faire grève contre la « politique du chiffre »’, 26 October 2023, available in French at: https://bit.ly/3IScUff.
[12] Council of State, 9 November 1966, No. 58903, available in French at: https://bit.ly/426fC8T; Council of State, 30 December 2011, No. 347624, available in French at: https://bit.ly/3nv29sq; Council of State, 30 January 2017, No. 394173, available in French at: https://bit.ly/3NEMe5j.