Who are the Afghans welcomed in France? – LCI

On Saturday August 28, the last French military plane took off from Kabul airport. In the space of two weeks, the army managed to evacuate 2,834 people from Afghanistan as part of Special Operation Apagan, despite the chaos caused by the Taliban seizure of power on August 15. Among these 2,834 people, French diplomats and expatriates but also more than 2,600 Afghan nationals, who were welcomed in France.

Only 21 civilians of local recruitment (PCRL) – these Afghans who worked with the French army during its intervention in the country – were with their families among the evacuated passengers, according to the count of the collective of lawyers coming to their aid. This does not seem like much in the light of the 170 PCRLs who asked to be evacuated after the return to power of the Islamist insurgents. “There remain more than 150 pending requests from former auxiliaries of the French army, including 33 who obtained a positive response for functional protection in court but could not be exfiltrated”, specifies in turn Brice Andlauer, journalist and co-author of “Tarjuman. Investigation into a French betrayal”.

Indeed, most Afghans exfiltrated by France were exfiltrated thanks to their status and their privileged contact with foreign institutions. If the registration of these future asylum seekers is in progress, their profile is gradually emerging. “These are people who come from urban areas of Afghanistan, mainly Kabul, and who had a social position in these cities,” underlines Didier Leschi, director of the French Office for Immigration and Integration (Ofii).

Most Afghans who have benefited from a visa for France are doctors, prosecutors, people with links to NGOs or international institutions, such as translators or diplomats, but also artists and journalists, according to Didier Leschi. . Between August 15 and August 27, France largely evacuated members of this “urban society, in contact with Westerners”, and especially in the Afghan capital “where is a middle class in the crosshairs of the Taliban”.

Other people have been the subject of repatriation within the framework of family reunification, thus allowing them to join their spouse who has obtained the right of asylum in France, without it being possible yet to estimate how many they are among them. the 2,600 evacuated. But many families have been welcomed. Tuesday, August 24, three days before the end of French operations, children represented a third of Afghans exfiltrated by the French army, explained Didier Leschi to our colleagues from France Inter.

Since Monday, August 30, a window specially dedicated to asylum requests from evacuated Afghans has opened at the Paris police headquarters. This device must serve to simplify procedures and not obstruct other pending requests, while the first evacuees have completed their period of quarantine and can begin their administrative procedures.

But while all the foreign forces have definitely left Afghanistan, several thousand people are left to their own devices. “We have a lot of reports to leave the country”, confirmed Jean-Yves Le Drian this Tuesday, August 31 on France 2. “All these reports are now being investigated by the Quai d’Orsay”, continued the Minister of Foreign Affairs, designating by that these Afghan nationals “who are endangered by their profession, whether journalists, lawyers, judges or activists”.