Lebanese fear France after their visas expire… Isn’t what’s happening in their country a force majeure?

Due to the security situation in their country, many Lebanese want to extend their stay in France. But the responses of the local authorities to their requests ranged from silence to denial, according to what the newspaper said.Lu Monde“.

Marilyn needed help returning to school for her two daughters. This French-Lebanese woman, who is married to a Frenchman and lives in Val-de-Marne since 2021, was taken by her mother from Beirut on September 1. Her visit was only expected to last a few weeks, but since September 23, with the start of Israel’s daily aerial bombardment campaign, Lebanon has been in the midst of one of the worst humanitarian disasters in its history, according to the paper. news So Marilyn wanted her mother to stay longer.

But her mother is not authorized to stay in France beyond the time allowed on her tourist visa, that is, after November 12. “Since October 1, she has contacted all departments to extend her visa,” says the French-Lebanese woman, adding: “The local authority does not respond, not by post -d or on the phone I left recorded messages, no need to write to the emergency cell in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Elysee.

Not wanting to be “paperless at 70,” Giselle Dakach decided to leave. Her visa expired on October 15, after she also came to France at the end of the summer to look after her two grandchildren, aged one and three. She cannot return to Beirut now. “She lives five minutes away from Hezbollah’s headquarters,” explained her son Elie Dagher, a 36-year-old French-Lebanese resident of Hauts-de-Seine and manager of real estate companies. The son says that he tried hard to extend his mother’s visa, but to no avail. “The sub-authority in Boulogne-Billancourt is pleased to inform us that the ministry has not yet submitted any instructions regarding Lebanese citizens” meanwhile, we no longer have a solution on Tuesday, my mother will leave for Dubai, where my sister lives,” according to the same source.

Humanitarian or family reasons
According to the French Ministry of the Interior, by the end of 2023, approximately 30,000 residence permits and more than 104,000 visas (mostly short-term visas) had been issued to Lebanon and remained valid, “but that does not mean that everyone in the country is national.” The Lebanese Embassy in Paris received about 350 applications from Lebanese whose visas are expiring soon and the local authorities are refusing to extend them or will not respond to their applications. “We are trying to solve this problem with the Ministry of the Interior,” the embassy confirms to Le Monde.

At the Lebanese Embassy in Bufo Square, it is stated that “there is no systematic policy” and that “local authorities investigate cases on a case-by-case basis.” ” According to the applicable law, the visa can be extended in particular in cases of “force majeure, ie unforeseen and unavoidable cases not related to the will” of the applicant. The extension is considered justified only for humanitarian or family reasons.

Samir, a 26-year-old Lebanese, who arrived in Lyon on October 17, where he has family far away, says: “I came for tourism … I don’t plan to settle in France, but with the security situation and the risk of being stopped… Internet, I just wanted an extension for a couple of months so that I could continue to work in Saadiyat, where I live with my family, a shell exploded near a parking garage 5 meters from our house in September. 25.”

The local authority in Rhône rejected his request, “in the implementation of ministerial directives,” without explanation, saying that “flights with Lebanon have not stopped,” as stated in the ‘ email sent to Samir. So he boarded a plane on October 24, when his visa expired, and landed in Jordan, where his employer rented him a hotel room.

“No exceptions”
In Hauts-de-Seine, lawyer Anne Mello, who contacted the local authority about a visa extension, received an email from the immigration service telling her that “the common law exception does not apply to Lebanon ,” she said. She has asked the governor to find out if “force majeure” can be considered a justification, and she is waiting for an answer, according to the newspaper.

These appointments do not surprise Patrick Berdugo, co-president of the Association of Lawyers for the Protection of the Rights of Aliens: “The administration wants to avoid that people will be able to apply for a residence permit, so they prefer to keep them. in an uncertain state,” he believes. “This was already the case with Haitians in the spring, when the Port-au-Prince airport was closed and the country was in a state of external violence .”