He was not known to any intelligence service, he had no identified psychiatric history, and was neither under the influence of narcotics nor under the influence of alcohol. On Thursday June 8, Abdalmasih H., a 32-year-old Syrian refugee, attacked six people, including four very young children, with a knife in a public park along Lake Annecy. Quickly arrested by the police, his condition was deemed “compatible with police custody” by an expert psychiatrist – but the man has not yet given any explanation for his gesture.
Of his journey in Europe, the investigators have only meager details: after fleeing the civil war in Syria in 2011, he met his wife – also a Syrian refugee – in Turkey. The couple passed through Greece, then married and settled in Sweden, a country in which Abdalmasih H. will obtain a residence permit under subsidiary protection on April 26, 2013, valid until 2025. According to the Swedish Authority migration, he has tried several times to obtain Swedish nationality since 2017, without success. About eight months ago, these successive failures would have pushed him to leave the country and to separate from his wife, according to the words of the latter, questioned by AFP. The couple, parent of a three-year-old child, would have communicated very little since. Four months ago, during one of these rare exchanges, Abdalmasih H. allegedly told his ex-wife to live “in a church” in France, where he filed an asylum application with the French Office for Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra) on 28 November.
Did this man have the right to travel to France, and under what conditions? Above all, was it possible for him to apply for asylum in France, even though he already had refugee status in Sweden? “The international protection granted by a Member State of the European Union does not open the automatic right to settle in any other country of the EU”, recalls Serge Slama, professor of public law at the University Grenoble Alps. “On the other hand, within the Schengen area of freedom of movement, the beneficiary of subsidiary protection in Sweden, and a fortiori of a residence card, has the perfect right to move around and enter France, under certain conditions in particular of resources”, he specifies.
He may reside there for a period of stay less than or equal to three months. “The person must nevertheless be able to present their residence permit accompanied by a travel document for foreigners”, notes Aude Rimailho, lawyer at the Paris bar. Specialized in the right of asylum, it reminds that if the refugee wishes to reside for more than three months in the country concerned, he will have to apply for a visa there.
Several asylum applications in Europe
Already a beneficiary of refugee status in Sweden, Abdalmasih H. filed an asylum application with the French authorities on November 28, and therefore had a receipt valid as a residence permit. “Even if they have already obtained refugee status somewhere in Europe, a person can indeed make a new asylum application in France, claiming ineffective protection from the country in which they reside”, notes the lawyer. specialist Elodie Journeau, who gives the example of Greece, Italy or Malta, countries in which the rights of refugees are “not always respected” and where their follow-up “is not necessarily guaranteed”.
But for the Ofpra, as for the National Court of Asylum (CNDA), there is “a presumption of guaranteed rights” within the countries of the European Union: the asylum seeker will therefore have to prove -even that his rights have not been respected in the country that hosts him.”It’s very complicated: during the interview with the Ofpra, the person will have to be able to put forward all kinds of evidence to corroborate her story. It will be necessary to demonstrate that her protection is not total, or that the absence of support places her in such destitution that we cannot consider that her protection is effective”, explains Elodie Journeau .
For this type of case, the persons concerned must first submit a “classic” asylum application to the prefecture. According to master Elodie Journeau, the latter places them “in accelerated procedure, after having learned of their status thanks to the fingerprint statement”. The file is then sent to the Ofpra, supposed to receive the asylum seeker and instruct this accelerated procedure within “within 15 days”, as specified the organization’s website. “Generally, these files indeed receive a response within a few weeks, pronouncing their request ‘inadmissible’ because of the said protection” which they have already been the subject of, confirms the lawyer. This was not the case for Abdalmasih H., whose case was only declared inadmissible on April 26, 2023, for notification by electronic means on June 4 – four days before the attack. Was this new asylum application processed under the accelerated procedure? The Isère prefecture did not respond to requests from L’Express. For its part, the Ofpra specifies that it is “bound by professional secrecy and the confidential nature of the asylum application”, and that it is not “able to communicate on individual situations”.
No specific support
Once his request was refused, Abdalmasih H. would have had one month to appeal this decision to the CNDA. “But from the notification by the Ofpra of the inadmissibility of his asylum application on June 4, he no longer had the right to remain in France and could, therefore, be the subject of a decision of handed over to Sweden”, notes Serge Slama. On the other hand, the fact of enacting an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) towards his country of origin “was obviously not possible, in the case of a Syrian Christian benefiting from international protection in another country European”, specifies the professor of public law.
For the specialist, the real failure would be mainly at the level of its support by the State. “Once his asylum application had been registered at the one-stop asylum seekers office, why was he not accommodated by the French Office for Immigration and Integration? [Ofii] ? What if a vulnerability has been detected, followed by a doctor, or even a shrink? place, a 30-year-old single man will in the majority of cases be considered as non-priority and returned to the street, without personalized social follow-up, nor suitable housing, nor referral to medical follow-up. If there are psychological problems, as much to tell you that they go by the wayside”, confirms Elodie Journeau.
According to the director general of the Ofii Didier Leschi, Abdalmasih H. would indeed, for lack of space, “never be taken care of for accommodation in the national reception system”. He would nevertheless have benefited from “the allowance for asylum seekers since he was registered as such”, in the amount of 6.80 euros per day or 14.20 euros per day if no accommodation was offered to him. .
Since then, a witness told the regional daily The Dauphine Libere having regularly met him on a bench by the lake, “every day from morning to evening, whether the weather is good or bad”, “muttering under his breath” and without apparent aggression. Last Sunday, the police checked him after he washed himself in the waters of Lake Annecy, and, noting his regular situation on French soil, let him go, said Gérald Darmanin. On TF1, the Minister of the Interior also clarified that the suspect had also filed asylum applications in Switzerland and Italy.