Since August 15 and the entry of the Taliban into Kabul, signing the conquest of the country by the Islamists, the allied countries have carried out large-scale evacuation and exfiltration operations requiring appropriate organization and logistics.
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Coalition governments supporting the former Afghan government focused first on repatriating their own nationals before dealing with Afghan allies and their families fleeing the future Taliban regime.
Most want to grant asylum to Afghans who have collaborated with the allies, or whose political or ideological positions do not allow them to remain in the country in safety.
These asylum requests are in addition to a continuous Afghan immigration for several years with the deterioration of insecurity in the country.
A thousand Afghans evacuated to France
The Americans have evacuated 48,000 people since the airlift was set up on August 14 - including 11,000 in just 12 hours on Monday - on the eve of the Taliban's entry into Kabul and their seizure of power, according to the White House . Among them, thousands of Afghans although the exact number is not known. France, where a seventh flight landed overnight from Sunday to Monday, has so far evacuated more than a thousand.
The United Kingdom, for its part, has evacuated more than 3,100 since the launch of its operation called Pitting. The other countries of the European Union have all also repatriated their nationals but have also embarked many Afghans. To date, Italy has exfiltrated around 1,990 Afghan civilians in less than a week and plans to take 1,300 more currently at Kabul airport. Other countries such as Spain, Belgium, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden have also evacuated several hundred.
As for Canada, also present with the Western nations involved in Afghanistan, nearly 800 Afghans have arrived in the country as part of a new special immigration program.
Canadian authorities received around 6,000 requests, almost half of which were processed and approved.
Ambitious reception objective
Thousands of people are still congregating around Kabul airport in an attempt to flee the country, in an indescribable tension and chaos which complicates the evacuation operations.
Western countries are showing a lot of their desire to evacuate as many people as possible.
If France has not put forward a particular objective, Joe Biden indicated last week that the United States hoped to evacuate all the Afghan allies and their families, who represent between 50,000 and 65,000 people.
Canada, for its part, has pledged to welcome 20,000 Afghan refugees as part of its immigration program set up specifically for this crisis.
The UK also wanted, as Boris Johnson said, to host more than 20,000 people.
France, "
one of the countries that host the most
"
If the Elysee said last Tuesday that France was "
one of the countries which receive the most Afghans and which give them the most protection
", it is because indeed, Afghanistan is the first. country of origin of asylum seekers for several years. In 2020, more than one in 10 asylum seekers came from the Central Asian country with 10,364 files filed, ahead of Guinea with 6,257 requests and Nigeria with 4,559 requests. According to the latest figures, OFPRA grants the request for protection in 64% of cases, but appeals are still possible. The protection granted then increases to 89.9% after going before the National Court of Asylum, against 63% for the European Union as a whole.
Asylum requests from Afghanistan continued to increase from the middle of the 2010s, without stopping.
"
The maintenance of Afghan demand at a high level is explained by the deterioration of the security situation in the provinces of origin of asylum seekers
", explains OFPRA in its activity report for 2020
.
The organization specifies that the main reasons given for receiving asylum in France are "
threats received for having associated with the Afghan authorities or foreign forces and accusations of cooperation with insurgent groups
".
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Reduced to the annual figures of asylum requests in France, the number of Afghans evacuated is therefore not high for the moment.
"
The surplus compared to the recent past will not be massive, because this wave will only be added to a continuous flow that began long before, which is not linked to the victory of the Taliban and which will continue
", comments Olivier Roy, director of studies at EHESS and specialist in Afghanistan.
Illegal immigration
Always very difficult to quantify, we must not forget the Afghans present on French territory illegally. Without legal existence, it is difficult to account for their number. "
Many Afghans in France do not fall under the processing of the French asylum request
", explained recently on RTL the general manager of France Terre d'Asile Delphine Rouilleault, recalling that many Afghans are present in France without being engaged. in reception procedures. On this point, and also concerning the rejected asylum seekers, France and several other European countries suspended deportations to Afghanistan in July.