On 8 July 2020, the French Council of State found the Ministry of Interior responsible for the violation of the right to access the asylum procedure at the border between France and Italy.
The decision referred to an incident at the border last May, when a woman and her five-year old son were pushed back to Italy, despite their request to apply for asylum in France after having crossed the border. Council of State condemned the push-back, recalling how it represents a ”serious and illegal threat to the people’s fundamental right to asylum”.
According to Amnesty International, the practice of push-backs at the French border by the authorities has been going on for years. Between 6 and 7 July 2020 alone, 83 people were pushed back from France to Italy without their requests of asylum being registered at the border.
Amnesty International, together with the partner organizations Anafé, La Cimade, Médecins du Monde, MSF and Secours catholique, urges the new Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, to introduce new directions for the border police in order to guarantee people’s access to the asylum procedure in France and to make these new guidelines public.
For further information:
- ECRE, France: Court of Auditors Urges Modernisation of Migration and Asylum System, May 2020
- ECRE, France: NGOs Urged Sanitary Measure to Protect Those Stuck in Calais and Grand-Synthe, March 2020
- ECRE, ECtHR: Moustahi v France: Multiple violations in the Collective Expulsion of Unaccompanied Children to the Comoros, June 2020
- ECRE, Raid at NGO on the French-Italian border puts France and Italy at odds, April 2018
- ECRE, Important decision in the alpine northern border region of Italy: Minors not to be left in the cold, February 2019
- AIDA, 2019 Country Update France, March 2020
Photo: (CC) Naval S November 2018
This article appeared in the ECRE Weekly Bulletin . You can subscribe to the Weekly Bulletin here.