If the number of detentions of foreign people itself has only increased slightly compared to 2022, detention conditions in France have deteriorated considerably, according to Cimade. The association publishes its annual report on administrative detention centers (CRA), places where foreign nationals are deprived of their freedoms due to the irregularity of their situation.
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In 2023, 45,000 people of foreign nationality were locked up in detention centers in France, three-quarters of which are in Overseas Territories. Mayotte alone concentrates more than 60% of those detained.
In 70% of cases, detention was decided following the issuance of an OQTF, an obligation to leave French territory. At the level of the European Union, France is the country which delivers the most. Since 2022, it has been at the origin of a third of the removal measures taken on the continent.
“ We see a political will to lock up and remove people considered dangerous by the administrationanalyzes Justine Girard. Foreigners represent a threat to public order and are locked up for this reason, in disregard of their rights and their individual and personal situation. “.
However, the actual number of expulsions from administrative detention centers (CRA) fell by 15.3% last year, a sign for Cimade that the link between the need for confinement and expulsions, dear to the Ministry of ‘Inside, doesn’t stand up.
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Procedures and rights violated
Several people were expelled while their asylum application or their appeal to the courts was still being processed. “ This rarely happened before, most often due to administration errors. But in 2023, there have been many more and we sense a political will to expel people without respecting the current procedures, while some of these procedures allow the suspension of the expulsion », explains Justine Girard.
Inside administrative detention centers, the rights of detainees have also been violated on several occasions. Medical on-call services are not systematically provided, according to the report, and when they are, the doctors’ opinions are sometimes not taken into account by the prefecture (which decides on the extension of detention).
Thus, a man died in the summer of 2023 after several alerts ignored by the authorities about his vulnerability and the incompatibility of placement in detention with his state of health. In total, four people died there last year.
While the average length of stay in CRA was 28.5 days in 2023, twice as long as five years ago, the report also highlights the consequences of confinement: violence, self-mutilation, suicide attempts , psychological after-effects upon discharge, particularly among the youngest.
Children still locked up
Although the placement of unaccompanied minors in detention centers is prohibited, 21 people claiming to be under 18 found themselves in CRA last year. The report notably relates the testimony of an Angolan national, aged 14 and placed at the CRA in Metz in June 2023, because the prefecture considered her an adult: “ Madam J., however, had her birth certificate, which was not taken into account by the prefecture’s services. However, the Court of Cassation recalled that in the event of doubt about the age of the person concerned, this should benefit the person concerned; the presumption of minority should have taken precedence in Ms. J’s situation “. She only came out three weeks later, after an Ofpra officer ordered her immediate release from the detention center.
Children accompanied by their parents are fewer and fewer in number. In mainland France, 87 people stayed in CRAs, and this figure should decrease even further with the immigration law passed in early 2024. The text asks prefectures to favor the house arrest of families rather than their confinement. The only exception to its application: Mayotte, which will have to wait until 2027 for this provision to be implemented. It is also in Mayotte that there are the most numerous children. In 2023, 3,262 accompanied minors were detained, or 37 times more than in France.
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