Moroccans Face Visa Hurdles: Unofficial Brokers Exploit French Application Process

Badr (pseudonym), 30, living in Marrakech, had to pay around fifteen euros to an intermediary to obtain a visa to attend his sister’s wedding in France last summer. "It’s impossible to find an appointment on TLS Contact (the service provider designated to manage visa applications from Morocco and 13 other countries, editor’s note) or you have to stop working to stay connected all day," testifies this computer engineer to BFMTV.

The intermediary advised him to add a few supporting documents to the file, including an invitation letter from his sister, copies of his passport, tax return and pay slips. But all that will have been in vain, because France has decided, since September 2021, to halve the number of visas granted to Moroccan nationals. Badr’s visa application was therefore refused. Beyond this political measure, the overload of the TLS Contact platform also makes it difficult to obtain an appointment to submit the file.

This situation has benefited intermediaries who have stormed the available appointments to resell them on the "black market", for several hundred euros, denounces Youssef El Idrissi El Hassani, the president of the Franco-Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AFMDH). "How is it that intermediaries manage to get these appointments and not the citizens?" he wonders, alerting the French Ministry of the Interior to this breach of access to rights.

For its part, the Ministry of the Interior claims to fight "with determination against the phenomenon of malicious capture of online appointments". However, the phenomenon is rampant. Moroccans pay an average of 50 to 100 dirhams (5 to 10 euros) or even "up to 2,500 dirhams (250 euros) for a visa appointment," confides an intermediary. Moroccan nationals also have to pay a service fee of 33.5 euros to the TLS operator, which leads some to pay twice for the same service.