France rejects 53.000 visa applications by Algerians under pretext of “incomplete files”

The French Consul in Algeria, Michel Dejaegher, has admitted that the rate of those visa applications submitted by Algerian nationals and rejected by the French consulate authorities reached 27.04 % by last May of this year.

• The rejection of visa applications by the French consulate for nationals of other countries didn’t however exceed the rate of 11%.
• This is evidence of the different treatment reserved for those Algerian nationals who want to travel to France. However, the French consul in Algeria said on Monday during a press conference held at the French Cultural Center in upper Algiers, that the French consulate officials were not applying a so-called “quota-system” for the Algerian visa applicants stressing that the treatment of the visa files were being examined according to every person and in line with certain criteria.
• Replying to a critical assessment report issued earlier this week by an ecumenical organization called “Cimade” dealing with emigration in France, the French Consul indicated that the rejection rate of the visa applications submitted by Algerian nationals was set at 34.98% in 2006, then 29.68% in 2009 before decreasing to 27.07% by the second semester of this year.
• He added that the three French Consulates in Algeria located in Algiers, Oran and Annaba were usually treating more than 200.000 Algerian visa applications every year that is about 10% of the overall number of visa applications submitted by all those citizens willing to enter French territory.
•  The number of those who secured a Schengen visa from the French Consulate has witnessed a steady hike, going from a rate of 22% in 2007, to 27% in 2008 and 32% in the year 2009, he asserted.                               
• The French Consul further pledged that as from this month of July 2010, the Consulate executives would duly expound the reason behind each visa refusal to all applicants by mail within a time-frame not exceeding 15 days.