France’s national auditor has slammed the country’s asylum policies, saying too much money is being spent on asylum seekers and too few people whose claims are rejected are being deported. It says the problems are linked to the excessive length of time it takes to process a claim, reports RFI.
The Cour des comptes, which conducts financial and legislative audits of public institutions, says the two years on average it takes for an asylum seeker to get an answer in France is too long.
“Compared with its neighbours, France stands out because its procedure is too long,” the court’s president, Didier Migaud, told the AFP news agency. “This excessive amount of time means additional costs in terms of welfare benefits and housing.”
The auditor’s report, published Tuesday, said that France spent 690 million euros on asylum cases in 2013, on top of which are health and education costs that it said “are difficult to evaluate precisely”.
The amount spent increased 52 per cent between 2009-2014, while the number of asylum seekers in rose only 36 per cent in the same time period.
Gérard Sadik, coordinator of the asylum programme for the Cimade, an NGO that works with undocumented migrants, explains the rising costs as a redress of previous policies.
“There was not enough investment in the asylum system for many years,” he told RFI. “What the government is doing now is trying to get back to a normal situation. It’s just catching up.”