|Published on: 12th June 2025|Categories: News|
The updated AIDA Country Report on France provides a detailed overview on legislative and practice-related developments in asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum applicants and content of international protection in 2024. It is accompanied by an annex which provides an overview of temporary protection.
A number of key developments drawn from the overview of the main changes that have taken place since the publication of the update on 2023 are set out below.
Asylum procedure
- Statistics: 157,947 people registered asylum applications before the Single Desk for Asylum Applicants (GUDA) in 2024. The main countries of origin of asylum applicants were Ukraine, Afghanistan, Haïti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. The Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) recorded 153,600 asylum applications in 2024. This represented a slight increase from the previous year. The overall protection rate at first instance in 2024 was 8%, also an increase from 2023.
- Access to the territory: In 2024 and early 2025, internal border controls covered all land, sea and air internal borders. In February 2024, the Council of State cancelled the article of law which allowed refusals of entry to be issued in all circumstances and without any distinction in the context of the re-establishment of internal border controls. A total of 45,203 people were detected as they tried to cross the Channel towards the UK irregularly in 2024 while 6,310 people were rescued at sea and at least 82 people died. In April 2024, the Ombudsperson published a decision revealing that serious and massive violations of the rights of people seeking asylum who had been stopped at the Italian border were ongoing.
- Registration of asylum applications: Although the three-day dealine for registering asylum applications was generally respected in 2024, the situation was extremely complicated in at least three territories: in Isère (mainland France), waiting times reached approximately two months at the end of 2024, in French Guiana, waiting times exceeded 18 months at times in 2024, and in Mayotte, the relevant office of the prefecture has been closed since October 2024 and no alternative solution has been provided.
- Reform of the National Court of Asylum (CNDA): Since September 2024, asylum applicants registered in certain areas have had their appeals examined by one of four new territorial chambers. Also following the 2024 legal reform, cases in all types of procedures are, in principle, ruled upon by a single judge rather than a three-judge panel.
- Dublin statistics and reduced deadline to appeal: In 2024, French authorities placed 25,875 people under the Dublin procedure. The transfer rate in 2024 was 8.2%. Since the 2024 reform, the time that people have had to appeal against a transfer decision has been reduced from 15 to seven days.
Reception conditions
- Orientation mechanism: Of the 108,284 people who were offered reception conditions outside the Ile-de-France (Paris region) between 2021 and 2024, 29,523 refused and 14,241 others who accepted did not go to the designated accommodation. This led to a deprivation of reception conditions for 43,764 people. The average rate of orientation refusals and no shows has increased since the mechanism was introduced in 2021, including in 2023-2024 period.
- Asylum applicants without any material reception conditions: A comparison of the number of asylum applications that were pending at the end of 2024 (147,950 according to the European Statistical Office (Eurostat)) and the number of asylum applicants who were benefitting from reception conditions at this time (90,329 according to the Office for Immigration and Integration (OFII), reveals that more than 50,000 people did not have any reception conditions.
- Lack of reception capacity: At the end of 2024, the Ministry of Interior stated that 64% of asylum applicants eligible for material reception conditions were being effectively accommodated (compared to 59% at the end of 2023). When the remaining 36% are added to those people who were not benefiting from any reception conditions at all, this suggests that there were insufficient places for almost 90,000 asylum applicants at the end of 2024. New places that were foreseen in the 2024 Budget Law were not opened due to budgetary constraints while the €69 million reduction in the funding available for housing asylum applicants that was foreseen in the 2025 Budget Law could lead to the closure of several thousand places.
- Ban on accommodating unaccompanied children in hotels: Following a legal reform in 2022, as of 2024, children can no longer be accommodated in hotels.
Detention of asylum applicants
- New and expanded grounds for detention: The 2024 legal reform has allowed for the detention of asylum applicants who present a threat to public order at any point in the procedure or who express a wish to apply for asylum in a location other than in the prefecture and who present a risk of absconding. This framework has become firmly established in practice in Mayotte where access to the prefecture has been impossible since October 2024. The 2024 reform also extended the grounds for detention of people who have placed under the Dublin procedure before the adoption of a transfer decision.
- Prohibition of detention of all minors: The detention of minors – regardless of their status – has been prohibited in mainland France since February 2024. This prohibition will enter into force in Mayotte in 2027. In previous years, the vast majority of accompanied children who were detained in France were detained in Mayotte.
Content of international protection
- Hindered access to rights due to delays in receiving documentation: The ability of beneficiaries of international protection to access their rights was severely hindered by the impossibility of receiving their birth certificates from OFPRA in a timely manner in 2024. The absence of birth certificates meant that they are unable to receive residence permits from prefectures and this in turn meant that they were unable to access services (e.g. housing, employment, bank accounts, social welfare, etc.). Although it decreased for the first time in several years, the average time for OFPRA to provide documents in 2024 was 10.5 months.
- Scope of global integration programme restricted: Due to budget restrictions, the scope of the Comprehensive and Individualised Support for the Integration of Refugees (AGIR) programme has been reduced. Limits on the number of people who can be supported under the programme have been set for each department and prioritisation criteria have been established for 2025.
Temporary protection
- Increased interest in international protection status by Ukrainians: According to the government, 56,314 active temporary protection residence permits were held by Ukrainian adults at the end of 2024 (up from 62,438 at the end of 2023). Meanwhile, the number of Ukrainian asylum applicants (11,800 first asylum applications) was four times higher than in 2023. A total of 6,923 Ukrainian nationals were granted international protection in 2024 (up from 2,350 in 2023).
- Discontinuation of French language training: In April 2024, French language training was discontinued due to budget cuts and is not expected to be restarted in 2025.
- Government guidelines issued to encourage transition of beneficiaries of temporary protection towards other statuses: In December 2024, the prime minister issued guidelines notably to “speed up access to residence permits for the most integrated beneficiaries of temporary protection” by asking prefectures to, whenever possible under the current law and conditions, redirect applications towards more permanent residence permits in order to “promote their professional and social integration”.
The full report is available here and the annex on temporary protection is available here.
For more information about the AIDA database or to read other AIDA reports, please visit the AIDA website.
