U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1997 - France

Some 17,153 applications for asylum were filed in France during 1996, a 15 percent decrease from the 20,170 applications filed the previous year. The number of asylum applications filed in France has decreased steadily since 1993, when 27,564 claims were registered. During the first six months of the year, the largest groups of asylum seekers came from Romania (16.8 percent of all applications filed), Sri Lanka (7.5 percent), China (7.4 percent), Zaire (7 percent), former Yugoslavia (5.8 percent), and Algeria (4.1 percent). During the first six months of 1996, the French authorities issued decisions on some 10,993 applications (both first- and second-instance decisions), conferring refugee status in 1,942 cases, an approval rate of 17.7 percent. African Immigrants Protest In a highly visible incident that drew strong condemnation from humanitarian organizations and left-wing political parties but praise from right-wing, ultra-nationalist groups, the French authorities on August 23 raided St. Bernard de la Chapelle, a Paris church where 200 to 300 undocumented immigrants of African origin had gathered to protest their treatment under a set of restrictive anti-immigration measures known as the Pasqua laws passed in 1993. Most of the protesters had entered France legally, but their residence permits were not renewed after the Pasqua laws entered into force. Some 210 persons were arrested in the raid and four deported immediately on a military aircraft used to remove 54 other undocumented foreigners to Western and Central Africa. Although about 45 of the persons who were arrested reportedly had their expulsion orders canceled and were to receive residence permits after the church raid, the remaining undocumented protesters were not necessarily able to regularize their status. The dramatic incident, allegedly involving racist and brutal police conduct, was the culmination of a six-month standoff between this core group of undocumented immigrants, representing thousands of other similarly situated persons, known as sans-papiers, and the French government, which has sought strict enforcement of the Pasqua laws. On July 3, 1996, France and Germany banded together to conduct a joint deportation of 44 Zairian and Tunisian unauthorized migrants. France carried out other group deportations, unilaterally and with its European neighbors, during the year. From January 1 through September 12, France repatriated 8,826 foreigners without permission to remain. Asylum Procedure The French asylum procedure is governed by the law on foreigners of November 2, 1945, which, over time, has been modified and supplemented by various amendments and decrees. A 1952 law established the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA), an autonomous body within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is responsible for adjudicating asylum claims. Negative decisions issued by OFPRA may be appealed to the Refugee Appeals Commission (CRR). Applicants may appeal CRR rejections to France's highest administrative court (Conseil d'Etat), which may consider questions of law only. An appeal to the Conseil d'Etat will not automatically suspend an applicant's removal from French territory. Persons admitted into the regular asylum procedure receive a social security allowance of about 1,400 French Francs ($280) per month; asylum seekers do not have the right to work. When a foreigner is admitted into the country and wishes to apply for asylum, or in cases where an asylum seeker has already entered France, either legally or illegally, he or she must proceed first to the local prefecture. In the normal procedure, the prefecture issues the person a one-month stay permit (autorisation provisoire de séjour-APS) and provides an asylum application form. The individual must submit the form to OFPRA within one month, after which the applicant returns to the prefecture, which issues a three-month stay permit, renewable until the end of the determination procedure. OFPRA reportedly takes an average of two months to issue a decision on the merits of an asylum application. The prefecture is also charged with assessing the bona fide character of the application, employing European Community (EC) resolutions on manifestly unfounded applications. Legally, the prefecture is competent to decide whether an application is manifestly unfounded only in cases involving responsibility under the Schengen Agreement. In all other cases, OFPRA issues the final admissibility ruling. French legislation includes fraud as a criterion for declaring an application to be manifestly unfounded. If the prefecture rules that the application is inadmissible, instead of issuing an APS, the prefecture issues a deportation order, and the applicant is detained. Agents of Persecution Decisions issued by both OFPRA and CRR (the appeals body) have narrowly defined the interpretation of "agents of persecution." Officials responsible for both first- and second-instance decisions have recognized only persecution that originates from state authorities or that is encouraged or tolerated by those authorities, and persecution by de facto authorities. For example, France has recognized acts carried out by militia in Bosnia as persecution under the UN Refugee Convention, stating that such persecution derives from de facto authorities who have replaced state authorities who do not control all the territory within their legal jurisdiction. However, OFPRA and CRR officials have not recognized persecution in situations where no national-level authority exists, as in Somalia. The Conseil d'Etat upheld OFPRA's and CRR's rationale for denying refugee status to victims of non-state persecution in two separate rulings during 1996. In one case that involved an Algerian national who had received death threats from Islamic extremists, the Conseil d'Etat said that the applicant in question was not entitled to refugee status because the Algerian authorities "had not voluntarily tolerated" the applicant's mistreatment. UNHCR has stated that this interpretation of agents of persecution "has no foundation in the 1951 [Refugee] Convention." Restrictive Measures According to amendments to the law on foreigners enacted in July 1992 and December 1994, insufficiently documented asylum seekers arriving at border and entry points are subject to a pre-screening procedure to determine whether permission to enter the territory to pursue their asylum claims should be granted. Pending a decision on their entry, such persons are held in "waiting zones" that have been set up in French airports, harbors, and some railway stations open to international traffic. If a decision on admission is not issued within four days, the asylum seeker in question must be brought before a judge. An asylum seeker may not be held for more than 20 days in a waiting zone. Under this procedure, officers from OFPRA (within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) provide the Ministry of the Interior with an advisory opinion on the individual case. The Ministry of the Interior then issues a decision on whether the asylum seeker will be permitted to enter France. Asylum seekers permitted to enter France are given a six-day "safe conduct" pass, which allows them to travel to a local prefecture to register their presence and request an asylum application form. The prefecture then conducts its own admissibility inquiry. If the interior ministry issues a nonadmission decision, the would-be asylum applicant may appeal, although the appeal does not suspend removal. The Ministry of the Interior may deny admission to the territory if an asylum seeker's request is "manifestly unfounded." In 1996, however, no national legislation existed to define what claims were to be considered as such. Therefore, officials simply applied the criteria laid down in the Resolution on manifestly unfounded applications for asylum that had been adopted by the then-EC ministers responsible for immigration in London on November 30, 1992. In practice, they issued nonadmission decisions in cases where they believed another state party to the Schengen Agreement was responsible for reviewing an asylum claim, where the individual in question arrived from a "safe third country," and where they believed the application to be fraudulent. On December 18, 1996, however, the Conseil d'Etat ruled against the use of the safe third country concept to deny asylum seekers arriving from states not party to the Schengen Agreement access to France and its asylum procedure. The case involved a Liberian asylum seeker whose claim the French interior ministry had rejected without a review on the merits on the grounds that he should have requested asylum in Cameroon, the claimant's last stop before arriving in France. In its decision, the Conseil d'Etat found that application of the safe third country concept to states other than those party to the Schengen Agreement has no foundation in French law, based as it is solely on the 1992 EC Resolution on manifestly unfounded asylum applications. On June 26, 1996, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that France had no legal basis for holding four Somali asylum seekers in the transit zone of Orly airport for 20 days without access to legal and social assistance and subsequently deporting them to Syria without a review of their cases on the merits. The incident, which occurred in March 1992, predated legislation that formally established the accelerated procedure on July 6 of that year. The Court found that France's treatment of the Somali claimants had deprived them of their liberty and security of person within the meaning of Article 5 of the European Human Rights Convention. While recognizing the prerogative of states to control irregular immigration, the Court ruled that states may not employ measures that deprive asylum seekers of the protection afforded by the European Human Rights and UN Refugee Conventions. Although the July 1992 amendment to the law on foreigners introduced limited due process and mandated access to legal and other assistance for asylum seekers in the waiting zones, the International Human Rights Federation (FIDH) issued a report in June 1996 indicating that significant problems remained with the accelerated procedure. Following a visit to Charles de Gaulle airport, the FIDH reported that the authorities' conduct "raises grave doubts about the possibility of even filing a request for asylum." The FIDH pointed to "almost insurmountable difficulties" that asylum seekers face in attempting to register their claims. In October 1996, France Terre d'Asile reported that no effective means existed to monitor the treatment of asylum seekers in the waiting zones. A limited number of representatives from accredited NGOs may visit the waiting zones but must inform the Ministry of the Interior prior to such visits. Some NGOs have been denied accreditation and therefore are unable to carry out site visits. UNHCR has greater access to the waiting zones, according to an agreement it reached with the Ministry of the Interior in December 1995. Schengen Agreement On March 26, 1995, France began implementing the Schengen Agreement along with Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, and Sweden, also signatories to Schengen, are expected to begin implementation in the near future. In addition, Iceland and Norway are anticipated to become associate parties to the agreement. The Schengen Agreement establishes a mechanism for determining state responsibility for adjudicating asylum claims among its member states. The agreement requires member states to readmit and examine the asylum applications of claimants to whom they have issued a visa, or of persons who have entered their territory first before traveling on to another member state. During the first year of the agreement's implementation (from March 26, 1995 through March 25, 1996), France petitioned other Schengen members to assume responsibility for reviewing some 2,402 asylum applications. As of March 25, 1996, however, other Schengen members had accepted only 337 cases, or 14 percent of the total. Other Schengen members refused to review 1,696 cases (71 percent), and 369 requests (15 percent) remained pending. Former Yugoslavs In June 1996, the French government began issuing three-month, safe-conduct travel documents to former Yugoslavs with refugee and temporary status wishing to travel home to assess the possibilities for their permanent return. Persons who received these documents were able to re-enter France with the same rights they had prior to departure provided they returned within the three-month period. However, there were reports during the summer that the Croatian authorities were not permitting persons with French safe-conduct travel documents to transit their territory. Although reports of the number of persons involved are not definitive, some 15,000 former Yugoslavs, 80 percent of whom were Bosnian Muslims, are believed to have benefitted from temporary protection in France. Of this number, an estimated 4,000 reportedly received refugee status.