False Christians and False Stories: How Migrants Are Exploiting Asylum Laws

Since June 8 and the knife attack in Annecy, a controversy has stirred the media space. Is the assailant a “true” Christian, as he claims? On the one hand, the factual elements collected seem to indicate that the suspect evolved within the Christian community. Beyond the cry “In the name of Jesus Christ”, we see the aggressor sporting a cross on several videos. Asked by BFM TV, his ex-wife also confirms the religious affiliation of the suspect. On the other side, several personalities, including Eric Zemmour, raise doubts about the assailant’s self-proclaimed Christian identity. Lawyer Thibault de Montbrial, on the set of CNewsfurther explains that “In some immigration channels, associations and lawyers advise their clients on stories that ‘pass’. That is to say, turnkey stories that are delivered with two main arguments put forward: either homosexuality or being a Christian from the East. » Whether; for the time being, there is no element to accredit the thesis of the “false Christian” with regard to the man with the knife of Annecy, this controversy lifts a veil on a real circumvention of the right of asylum: the false accounts of life.

Being a Christian, a sesame for asylum

what 31 may before the Administrative Court of Paris, Mr. B., originally from Senegal, after having been dismissed by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA), still hopes to obtain asylum in France. In his file, the applicant says “having rejected the principles of Islam” in his childhood and then having “turned towards the Christian religion”. But in 2017, his father, who had become the village chief, would have chased away the entire Christian community, he explains. He would have finally decided to leave his country, “fearing for his safety”. This story, although moving, does not seem to convince the magistrates accustomed to this kind of stereotyped course. “His statements are devoid of any detailed information and his account of his practice of Christianity lacks credibility, the applicant failing to describe either the circumstances in which he would have approached the Christian religion or the ceremonies in which he would have taken part”, commented the court. And to add: “His statement demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the Christian religion to which he claims to adhere. »

Stories like this, recent case law abounds. Since the announcement by European governments to welcome persecuted Christians in the Middle East in the mid-2010s, many asylum seekers have been inventing a discriminated Christian past. Thus, on June 6, in Nancy, a Guinean under the influence of an OQTF claimed to have fled his country of origin “because of a conflict between him and his father about his Christian friend”. But after examining the file, it turns out that there is no “no evidence to support these allegations”.

Homosexual or political opponent

And when it is not Christian persecution that is claimed, some asylum seekers do not hesitate to call themselves homosexual – a category recognized since 2013 by the Geneva Convention – to obtain asylum. This May 30, before the Administrative Court of Appeal of Paris, a Jamaican, expelled from Germany after having committed around twenty offenses there, requests asylum in France. To justify his request, he mentions “of his sexual orientation, of his difficulties in finding a job”. But his account fails to fool the magistrates, who note that the applicant “provided no development on his family environment, on his awareness of homosexuality […] and no personalized and detailed information on his career “. A few days earlier, in Versailles, an Algerian migrant pleads both Christian identity and his homosexuality to stay in France. But again he “does not put the court in a position to verify these allegations”.

Behind these stereotyped narratives hide “story sellers” – members of the same community of origin or of associations – who, against a few tens, even hundreds, of euros, offer migrants a turnkey process that is supposed to make it easier to obtain refugee status. Narratives offered by Bangladeshis – one of the first asylum seeking communities in France – are the proof. All (or almost) tell the same story, like this Mr. A., targeted by OQTF, passed before the Administrative Court of Paris last March. A member of the opposition Bangladesh National Party, he explains that he found himself in conflict over agricultural land with a man close to the Awami league, the main political force. Threatened, according to him, he therefore seeks asylum in France. A story strangely similar to that of Mr. B., having appeared before the Administrative Court of Montreuil in July 2022. In both cases, these stories not being matched “of no prima facie evidence”the request is rejected.

These stories, fabricated from scratch, are proof of the great perversion of the right of asylum which once made it possible to welcome Alexander Solzhenitsyn, but which has now become a veritable channel of immigration. Because if these false stories are regularly unmasked, some still make it possible to obtain refugee status.