© Provided by Yabiladi
In 2019, France granted more than 340,000 visas to Morocco. Since then, the figure has dropped considerably, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and especially following the decision last September to halve its visas allocated to Morocco. Today, obtaining visas for any Moroccan who is not a student or road haulier has become a real ordeal and the feeling of injustice is often mixed with misunderstanding.
On September 28, 2021, the French government announced the reduction of the granting of visas to Morocco and Algeria by 50%, while the visas granted to Tunisia fell by 30%. For the authorities, it was a “decision made necessary by the fact that these countries do not agree to take back nationals that we do not want and cannot keep in France”, as declared it government spokesman Gabriel Attal.
This decision “unjustified for several reasons”, as affirmed it the head of Moroccan diplomacy, Nasser Bourita, was strongly criticized by the Morocco national office of the French of the World – the Democratic Association of French Nationals Abroad and many associations Moroccans, Algerians and Tunisians.
Almost 8 months after this unprecedented decision, the situation has not changed and Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerians are still facing a real obstacle course to obtain their visa. Crushed by the French administration, many Moroccans remain confused, deprived of visas to which they should be entitled, yet fulfilling the conditions set by France.
An obscure selection and reasons for refusal
Contacted by Yabiladi, an adviser to French people living abroad regretted being regularly confronted with inconsistent situations, such as that of a family where both parents have obtained a visa, but not their 5 and 8-year-old children. “The consulates are bothered”, he says, whereas until November they were issuing as many visas as possible, whereas today the number of visas is limited and certain files have priority, namely students and road hauliers.
“For people who settle in France, there is no problem, whether they are Moroccans or French spouses,” he adds, stressing that the problem concerns short-stay visas. To make its choice in the requests, the administration is more and more careful and automatically eliminates the files with the slightest flaw. “If the file is not ultra square, it is refused”, regrets the adviser. “You need hotel bills or accommodation certificates which cost 30 euros (319 dirhams) at the town hall in France. A file can quickly cost 100 euros (1,062 dirhams), not including transport costs, etc. And if the file is refused, it is money lost. There is almost no recourse possible, ”says the adviser.
If these refusals are in principle framed and transparent, their reasons are sometimes very obscure. “There are 8 reasons for refusal, and it is often the one that the information provided is incomplete and unreliable that is checked by the administration, without further details,” he comments again.
In this situation, the feeling that the administration grants itself, by obligation or by choice, a large margin of maneuver emerges in the various testimonies of the services concerned. Consulate employees had to find a method to apply the quotas in the face of the reduction in visas. This very often involves slowing down the processing of files as much as possible to see at the last moment if some are “mandatory”. For others, there must be an opening. In this configuration, little room is left for the considerations of each case, for human and family emergencies, especially since the processing time and appointment making complicates things.
France welcomes investments but not investors?
At the end of last November, the Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade and French Attractiveness, Franck Riester, ensured in Rabat the “willingness of France to welcome more Moroccan investors in France”, the reality catches up with the speech.
Indeed, these economic and investment considerations are not taken into account in the granting of visas. “Moroccan investors cannot go to France”, regrets the adviser, underlining, in addition to the business problems, the loss that France suffers from no longer welcoming Moroccan brains.
Ironically, Spain, which was in a diplomatic crisis with Morocco for more than a year, offers more visa opportunities for Moroccan nationals, who fall back on Madrid to obtain a Schengen visa to visit in France, sometimes for job interviews.
The TLS appointment booking system
Behind the problem of granting visas, another situation plagues the process, namely making appointments. Over the past ten years, there has been a significant drop in the human resources granted to consulates and the dematerialization of the relationship with users has led the administration to turn to the TLS system for making appointments.
Far from being a peculiarity in Morocco, this system poses a problem throughout the world due to the lack of available slots and the opacity of the procedure for putting them online. Also, all citizens, French or foreign, face the continual lack of available appointments for long weeks, especially in London. After two weeks of daytime and early morning trials, a Frenchman in Morocco told Yabiladi that he had to go to the site at 1 a.m. to finally get an appointment to renew his passport. luck got you a week later. The service was also only reachable by email, he adds, but all emails resulted in an automatic response.
This appointment, however, is often filed within a period closer to thirty days, not counting the time spent trying to get it. This situation slows down the administrative procedures as far as France, where certain municipalities present appointments two months in advance.
Faced with the situation, a young developer set up the AmbiSlot platform which allows, in certain cities, to automatically obtain an appointment as soon as they are put online. Unfortunately, other expensive services have developed on the parallel market, including the sale of appointment slots on social networks.
The image that this sends back of France is “disastrous”, regrets the French adviser, while people are forced to pay to benefit from a free service and, in principle, open to all. This problem will be raised in October at the next meeting of the Assembly of French people living abroad, he assures us.
PCR, Morocco and visa, towards an improvement of the problem?
This visa situation was to change in March, the authorities said, but no feedback was given to the advisers who are still in the shadows. However, Morocco’s decision to no longer require a PCR test for entry into the country could offer a ray of hope to many visa applicants.
Indeed, among the problems with the repatriation of Moroccan nationals, Mr. Bourita had stressed that France could not force them to undergo a screening test, yet required by Morocco. The end of this test would therefore suggest that the problem of entry into Moroccan territory of people targeted by an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) would be partly resolved.
Nevertheless, it is still necessary for the Ministry of the Interior in France to become aware of this or for elected officials to raise the problem. It also remains to be seen how the issue of the vaccine will be addressed by the French and Moroccan authorities and the people targeted by an OQTF.
“The administration will do everything to make this evolve, they are called upon every day with real problems”, underlines the adviser of the AFE, who notes that the diplomatic situation has become very problematic with this limitation of visas.
Contacted by Yabiladi, the French Embassy did not follow up on our requests, nor answer our questions sent in writing.