Country Report: France

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Country Report: France Country Report: France 2020 Update 2020 Update Acknowledgements & Methodology The 2020 update of this report was written by Laurent Delbos and Claire Tripier at Forum réfugiés – Cosi and edited by ECRE. Forum réfugiés-Cosi wishes to thank all those individuals and organisations who shared their expertise to contribute or check the information gathered during the research. Particular thanks are owed to many Forum réfugiés-Cosi 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- Cosi 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 the Paris-based UNHCR office 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 the departments of Ile de France, Rhône, Puy-de-Dôme, Haute- Garonne and Alpes-Maritimes. 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 2020, unless otherwise stated. 2 Table of Contents Glossary & List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................... 6 Statistics ................................................................................................................................ 9 Overview of the legal framework .........................................................................................12 Overview of the main changes since the previous report update .....................................17 Asylum Procedure ................................................................................................................20 A. General ........................................................................................................................................ 20 1. Flow chart ................................................................................................................................. 20 3. List of the authorities intervening in each stage of the procedure ........................................... 21 4. Number of staff and nature of the determining authority ......................................................... 21 5. Short overview of the asylum procedure .................................................................................. 23 B. Access to the procedure and registration ............................................................................... 25 1. Access to the territory and push backs .................................................................................... 25 2. Registration of the asylum application ..................................................................................... 31 C. Procedures.................................................................................................................................. 36 1. Regular procedure ................................................................................................................... 36 2. Dublin ....................................................................................................................................... 49 3. Admissibility procedure ............................................................................................................ 59 4. Border procedure (border and transit zones) ........................................................................... 61 5. Accelerated procedure ............................................................................................................. 72 D. Guarantees for vulnerable groups ........................................................................................... 75 1. Identification ............................................................................................................................. 75 2. Special procedural guarantees ................................................................................................ 80 3. Use of medical reports ............................................................................................................. 83 4. Legal representation of unaccompanied children .................................................................... 84 E. Subsequent applications ........................................................................................................... 86 F. The safe country concepts ........................................................................................................ 88 1. First country of asylum ............................................................................................................. 88 2. Safe country of origin ............................................................................................................... 88 G. Information for asylum seekers and access to NGOs and UNHCR ...................................... 91 1. Provision of information on the procedure ............................................................................... 91 2. Access to NGOs and UNHCR.................................................................................................. 93 H. Differential treatment of specific nationalities in the procedure........................................... 93 3 Reception Conditions ...........................................................................................................95 A. Access and forms of reception conditions ............................................................................. 96 1. Criteria and restrictions to access reception conditions ............................................................... 96 2. Forms and levels of material reception conditions ................................................................... 97 3. Reduction or withdrawal of reception conditions...................................................................... 99 4. Freedom of movement ........................................................................................................... 100 B. Housing ..................................................................................................................................... 101 1. Types of accommodation ....................................................................................................... 101 2. Conditions in reception facilities ............................................................................................. 107 C. Employment and education .................................................................................................... 109 1. Access to the labour market ...................................................................................................... 109 2. Access to education ................................................................................................................... 110 D. Health care ................................................................................................................................ 111 E. Special reception needs of vulnerable groups ..................................................................... 112 F. Information for asylum seekers and access to reception centres...................................... 115 1. Provision of information on reception ..................................................................................... 115 2. Access to reception centres by third parties .......................................................................... 116 Detention of Asylum Seekers ............................................................................................ 117 A. General ...................................................................................................................................... 117 B. Legal framework of detention ................................................................................................. 119 1. Grounds for detention ............................................................................................................ 119 2. Alternatives to detention ......................................................................................................... 121 3. Detention of vulnerable applicants ......................................................................................... 122 4. Duration of detention .............................................................................................................. 124 C. Detention conditions ..............................................................................................................
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