Even obtaining an appointment to file your application has become very complicated since the restrictions announced by Paris in September 2021.
It is as if we had erected a wall between two countries. A wall that separates even families. In Morocco, this bitter impression has not left Hamid Elmir, 49, since France refused him his visa. Hamid is not a candidate for illegal immigration, just a father who would like to visit his student daughter.
He may turn the problem in all directions, but he does not understand. “I have already had Schengen visas in the past, I have a stable situation, the same job for twenty-eight years means in my bank account”, underlines this laboratory technician in Casablanca who “knocked on all the doors” to find a solution … but “nothing to do”.
His application for a Schengen visa with the French consular authorities dates back to September 2021, when Paris announced that it would reduce the number of visas granted to Algerian and Moroccan nationals by 50% and by 30% to Tunisians due to the “refusal” of these three countries. of the Maghreb to repatriate their nationals in an irregular situation. A decision deemed “unjustified” at the time by Rabat. Still in a force eight months later, this hardening is experienced as a collective punishment by many Moroccans who regularly travel to France for family visits, business trips, or tourist stays. And who find themselves the collateral victims of a retaliatory measure that has nothing to do with them.
This is the case of Nadia (who wished to remain anonymous), an executive in a multinational in Rabat, who will not be able to follow her training in France scheduled for June after having suffered two visa refusals. “However, I had a solid file: mission order with full support from my company, invitation detailing the business trip program…”, reports the 30-year-old, who does not hide her frustration: “It’s up to ask if obtaining a visa has not become a game of chance, heads or tails!”
This experience, Youssef, 32, experienced it as a “humiliation”. “I had the impression of having to beg France to let me do business with its companies and to spend my money there”, indignantly this engineer in Casablanca who, this month, could not honor an appointment with a French supplier of his import company. “I do not hide from you that this causes a certain disgust for France”, he confides. Youssef finally obtained his Schengen visa through Spain, a country to which an increasing number of Moroccans seem to be turning in order to travel to Europe.
“At the slightest missing proof, it is the refusal”
Asked by Le Monde about this policy of quotas, the Consulate General of France in Rabat indicated that a “constant dialogue” was continuing with Morocco “in migration matters”. But he did not wish to detail how he proceeds to reject one out of two requests. In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, Morocco – which shares close historical, cultural and economic ties with France – was the third country to issue visas: 346,000 had been granted out of 420,000 applications, as well as the had revealed Europe 1 in September. That is a refusal rate of only 18%.
“The arbitrations are done in a fairly opaque way, observes an adviser to the French from abroad in the area. What is certain is that once visas have been granted to categories preserved, such as students and truck drivers, who need circulation visas, the remaining portion is very small. According to another source, the consular authorities, who must justify their refusals, would have no choice but to “put the ‘good’ files on hold until they find some to refuse”.
“To make the figure, there is no more tolerance in the examination of requests: at the slightest missing proof, it is the refusal”, reports for his part M’jid El Guerrab, deputy of the ninth district of the French. from abroad: “For example, a paid invoice from the hotel is now required, when previously a simple booking confirmation was sufficient. This whole procedure generates significant costs (application fees, travel insurance, etc.), which the applicant must pay without guarantee of obtaining the visa.
Since the beginning of the year, an additional obstacle has been added upstream of the procedure: not only are the chances of obtaining a visa reduced, but it has even become difficult – if not impossible – to make an appointment for making an application. The TLScontact platform (from the name of the service provider to whom the consulate subcontracts the filing of files) is saturated. In the question: an influx of requests since the reopening of Morocco’s borders in February (visas that expired during the pandemic and which must be renewed) and with the approach of summer, but also because of the proliferation of intermediaries who pre-empt meeting slots on the site and then resell them at prices that can exceed 150 euros. A veritable black market for dating.
“A disastrous image of French services”
Perle Guichenducq, a Frenchwoman residing in Casablanca, had no choice but to resort to it when it was necessary to renew the visa of her Moroccan spouse. “We started looking for a date on TLS in December. We connected several times a day, at odd hours, but there were no slots available. In March, we decided to buy an appointment from one of these intermediaries. It was the only solution to file our request and that my husband could come to France to see our family”, deplores this teacher at the origin of a petition, in April, to denounce a system “inadmissible, against the values of equality and transparency”.
Behind this parallel business, people who present themselves on social networks as “travel agencies” or “service providers” looking for additional income. Among those contacted by Le Monde, some say they operate “manually”: they stay connected from morning to evening and take the first appointments that become available on behalf of their “clients”. Others have software that automatically alerts them when the TLS site updates.
Although this system is not new, it has taken “considerable proportions” and “reflects a disastrous image of French services”, believes our consular adviser: “Basically, people understand that you have to pay a kind of bribe to have access to it! TLScontact did not respond to our requests. For its part, the Consulate General claims to have put in place “cybersecurity measures” and “prepayment of service charges within a very short time to validate the appointment”, in order to avoid these “drifts”.
Hamid Elmir refuses to pay an appointment to file a new request. He does not want to “endorse this system”. Lacking a visa, he is content to see his daughter by video call, while waiting for her return to Morocco this summer. “I love France, its culture, its rights. But this story of visas, this hassle that we are subjected to, these are things that I cannot understand, he laments. This is not the image I have of France. It’s not worthy of her.”
