With 130,933 applications filed in France in 2022, asylum applications have returned to their pre-health crisis level. According to figures published on Tuesday January 17 by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra), requests have increased by 27% compared to 2021. ” It is not a surprise, comments Julien Boucher, the director general of the Ofpra. The parenthesis linked to the Covid is closed. We are back on an upward trend that has lasted for a decade. » In 2019, the year before the health crisis, 132,826 requests for protection were registered by Ofpra.
“It is all the less a surprise that this gradual increase is found on a European scale, very markedly in certain countries”, continues Mr. Boucher. According to the latest data from the European Union Agency for Asylum, more than 900,000 asylum applications had been registered between January and the end of November 2022 in Europe, compared to 587,000 over the same period in 2021, i.e. a increase of 53.51%. France comes in second place behind Germany and ahead of Austria and Spain. “The 2021 figures can be seen as artificially low as the Covid-19 pandemic has affected both the ability to travel and lodge asylum claims in 2021”insists the European agency.
“We protect the Afghans”
Demand in Europe is now driven by Syrian, Afghan and Turkish nationals. Syrian demand is traditionally not significant in France and tends more towards countries like Germany. On the other hand, and for the fifth consecutive year, “Afghan demand is firmly in the lead, with nearly 18,000 requests”, remarks the director of the Ofpra. The nature of the protection granted to Afghans has evolved since the Taliban returned to power in the summer of 2021. “Until then, Afghans had mainly benefited from protection based on the war situation in a large part of the country and the resulting widespread insecurity.explains Mr. Boucher. Today, we are protecting the Afghans because the claimants are asserting fears linked to the power in place. »
With some 38,000 Afghans protected by Ofpra in 2022, their protection rate was 69%. These figures do not take into account any protection granted by the National Court for the Right of Asylum, which can be applied to applicants whose initial application has been rejected by the Ofpra.
All nationalities combined, the rate of protection granted by Ofpra was 29% in 2022, compared to 26% in 2021. ), Turkey (8,500), Georgia (8,100) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (5,900).
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