Refugees from Afghanistan at the Place de la République, Paris
As stated by the director of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra) Pascal Brice, in 2015 France granted asylum to 31.5% of those applying for this status, while in 2014 only 28% of applicants were successful.
Last year, according to Ofpra data, the main applicants for asylum were from Syria (5,200 asylum applications or 66% of applicants for the whole of 2015). Pascal Brice noted that in France almost all Syrians are granted asylum (97% of applicants). Among Sudanese citizens, the number of asylum applicants tripled (+170%). The third position in the number of asylum applications is held by applicants from Kosovo.
As reported by RFI, France had earlier committed to accepting 24,000 migrants by 2017 as part of the European Commission's new plan to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq and Africa within EU countries. Previously, the "French quota" of the European Commission was 6,750 migrants. France will also urgently take in a thousand asylum seekers who previously arrived in Germany.