In France asylum law establishes two sorts of international protection status: refugee and subsidiary protection. There are other specific mechanisms to access the refugee status i.e. (1) relocation schemes within the collective responsibility of EU member states; (2) resettlement; (3) asylum visas for specific vulnerable categories.
Recent years have been marked by changes in asylum legislation. In July 2014, the government presented two draft laws on immigration and asylum. The asylum law passed on July 2015 and came into force in November 2015 granting new rights to asylum seekers (i.e. automatically suspends decisions after appeals have been heard by the National Court of Asylum (CNDA), including fast-tracked cases; allows asylum seekers to take advice from the French Refugee Protection Agency (OFPRA), in line with EU directives; provides for improved assessment of and allowance for vulnerabilities at all stages of the application process (for those in poor health, female victims of violence, minors, etc.) (OECD, 2016a).
Another essential aspect of the law is that it has sped up the processes of application as the target was to be able to process asylum application in an average of nine months by the end of 2016. In 2016, according to numbers provided by the Ministry of Interior, the procedure lasted around 14 months. To prevent large numbers of asylum seekers from being concentrated in given parts of the country and to offer quality accommodation and social services, the new law has also set up a compulsory accommodation system (OECD, 2016a).
In February 2018 the national government produced a new asylum bill (Loi Colomb) engaged in reducing to six months the length of instruction of asylum claims (appeal included), which would especially apply to Île-de-France where the concentration of asylum seekers makes the procedure longer. It aims at reducing the time in the phases of registration (the asylum application would be processed under the accelerated procedure after 90 days of time once entered in the national territory, instead of 120 days previously), instruction and judgment. The law proposal has also reduced the time available for appealing the rejection of the protection status (from a month to 15 days). This law is under discussion at the moment of drafting this case and so its final characteristics cannot be presented here.