Moroccan Groups Protest ’Discriminatory’ EU Visa Policies, Cite France’s 50% Reduction

In an open letter, a dozen associations including the National Youth and Democracy Institute (INJD), the Prometheus Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, the Moroccan League for the Defense of Human Rights (LMDH) and the Moroccan Forum of Young Journalists (FMJJ), criticized the visa policy of European countries, and particularly of France.

"The right to free movement is being held hostage," denounce the associations, who recall that the measure taken by France to reduce by 50% the visas granted to Moroccans is "a regressive retaliatory measure" and an "inadmissible punishment". They deplore "the procedural inflation and the multiplication of categories and subcategories organized in cases, which weigh down the visa application procedures by making them more obsolete, opaque and permeable to the scam of intermediary services for the processing of applications".

The associations also draw attention to the "extremely variable processing times" and the "endless waiting times", as well as to "the use of private operators who replace the French administration, who are not remunerated by the French State, but by the applicants themselves". They also mention the fact that "the outsourcing of the processing of visa applicants’ files does not fully guarantee the protection and security of personal data and in particular biometric identifiers".