France reaps 300 billion centimes (DA) annually from the Algerian visa applicants

A recent report by the French Senate’s external affairs commission showed that the Algerian demand for French visas is the second highest in the world after that of the People’s Republic of China, and that during 2014, the overall number of Algerians who have requested a visa from French consulates in the last 10 years reached 2.5 million requests.

Furthermore, the estimated financial value of the required visa application fees paid by Algerians, and which entered the French Treasury, amounted to over 30 million Euros, the rough equivalent of 300 billion centimes in Dinars, and this during the course of the year 2014.

As a result in the hike of the demand, the French authorities have decided to hike the “quota” of Schengen visa allotments for the benefit of Algerian citizens starting from the month of October 2015 with on focus the curtailment in rejected visa applications and the easing of the relevant procedures required for visa granting.

French Consulate sources told “Echorouk” that around one hundred thousand Algerians have been granted the Schengen visa to enter the “Schengen European Space” over the past six months.

Over 300,000 visas were issued in 2014 by the Embassy of France in Algeria, according to the same sources.

This is a significant hike after the 210,000 visas issued the previous year.

75% of visa applications received a positive response in the three French consulates in Algeria, said the same sources.

50% of allocated visas allow for a regular circulation in France and in the Schengen area, overa period of several years without the need for a new visa. 

An increase favored by the latest injunction by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and international development, Laurent Fabius, to facilitate the procedure for the granting of visas to Algerians.

The same sources indicated that new work positions have been created within the French consulates in Algeria “to deal with the very significant increase in demand, which now stands at around 35% per year.”

The number of files processed per day reached 1,200 at the only General Consulate of Algiers, between the autumn of 2013 and the 2014 spring. 

The enforcement of such facilitation measures  are, according to the same sources, in the context of the consolidation of commercial, economic, academic and cultural exchanges between the two countries.