What is a refugee?

It was in 1793 that revolutionary France declared in its new (never applied) constitution that the French people "grants asylum to foreigners banished from their homeland for reasons of freedom. – It refuses asylum to tyrants".

The Geneva Convention of July 28^th 1951 defines the refugee as a person who is afraid "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion" should he have to return to his country. A refugee is therefore a person who has requested asylum in a foreign country and who has been recognised as having refugee status. In France, the Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (OFPRA) examines requests for asylum and recognises refugee status where applicable. A residence permit bearing the word “refugee”, valid for ten years with a right to renewal, is then delivered.

The Geneva Convention provided for temporal ("events that occurred before January 1^st  1951") and spatial ("in Europe") limitations to its application. These were removed by the New York protocol, ratified by France in 1971. Until that date, individuals recognised as refugees in France therefore came from European countries. Once the limitations were removed, citizens of other countries could claim refugee status. Refugees placed under the protection of France cannot return to their country:

Refugee status is not permanent. Refugees can:

a) give up their status if they believe that they no longer have anything to fear in their country and become a foreign resident like any other in France;

b) have their status removed after a termination procedure (without losing the right to live in France);

c) be naturalised and therefore no longer be foreigners in France.

The number of initial residence permits delivered for reasons of being a “Refugee and stateless” reached 13,656 in 2015, 17,349 in 2016, 21,139 in 2017, 19,245 in 2018 and (provisional figure) 20,314 in 2019, (Source: Agdref – DSED)

In 2019, 308,600 people were placed under the protection of OFPRA. Asia was in first place (122,993 people i.e. 39.9% of the total). This was followed by Africa (111,218 people), Europe (66,921 people) and the Americas (5,930 people).

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (see data), by the end of 2020, 82.4 million people had been uprooted as a result of war, conflict or persecution. These included 26.4 million refugees, 4.1 million asylum seekers waiting for their application to be processed, and 48 million people “internally” displaced inside their own country (not counted as migrants).

In 2020, two-thirds of international refugees came from only 5 countries: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Burma (find out more).

Turkey has welcomed the largest number of refugees (almost 4 million), followed by Colombia, land of refuge for almost 2 million Venezuelans, Uganda (1.5 million), Pakistan (1.4 million) and Germany (1.2 million refugees). In terms of absolute value, Germany is the only European country to count among the 10 countries in the world welcoming the most refugees (Sources: Number of international migrants in 2020: United Nations; and refugees end 2019: UNHCR). When it comes to asylum, wealth and solidarity are a bad mix... Not only do the poorest countries welcome the most refugees in terms of absolute value (4 out of 5 refugees, i.e. 80%), but this also applies in relation to the size of their economy.

In 2022, in the space of ten days, over 1.5 million Ukrainians rushed to the western borders of their country, chased out by the Russian invasion instigated by V. Putin. Almost from one day to the next, Europe woke up with a humanitarian drama in its midst. There was a unanimous reaction of mobilisation and solidarity, from Poland to France, in the media and within political parties. On February 25^th 2022 on Europe 1, French parliamentary representative Jean-Louis Bourlanges (MoDem), declared that Ukrainians in France would represent “high-quality immigration, that we can draw benefit from”. This led journalist Yaël Goosz to ask: “Wait, let me get this right: so there are less useful refugees… Because they’re too different from us culturally? Not Christians or not Europeans? A neighbourly reflex to help those who look like us first? The law of death by kilometre, meaning that the further from home atrocities happen, the more indifferent we are? As if we must call it ‘welcoming refugees’ when talking about Ukrainians, but ‘migrant crisis’ when referring to the fate of Iraqis, Syrians, or Afghans!” (France Inter, March 2^nd 2022).

The SNCF announced free transport for Ukrainian refugees. Soon after, the CGT-rail workers union asked for free transport to be extended to all refugees, considering that there is no reason to select “good or bad refugees”.

Mustapha Harzoune, 2022