Paris wants stricter and faster asylum policy

The French government will propose to deal with the processing of asylum applications more stringently and quickly.

The number of asylum applications continues to rise in France, unlike many other European countries. In 2017 more than 100,000 people applied for asylum in France, an increase of 17 percent compared to 2016. More than a third of the applicants were recognized as refugees.

The French president Emmanuel Macron wants to curb the influx. His Minister of the Interior, Gérard Collomb, emphasizes that France must include refugees, but not all labor migrants can handle them. However, the new law is controversial in the mixed political support of the liberal Macron.

According to human rights activists and refugee helpers, the proposed migration policy consists almost exclusively of measures to exclude refugees. They threaten protests.