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Join on Telegram Rabat – Since France decided last year to reduce the number of visas granted to Moroccan citizens, Moroccans have been criticizing the European country’s measure, with many describing the French visa policy as a “wall” intended to separate families.
In a Twitter thread, a Moroccan woman living in France expressed her frustration with the decision, recounting the story of how the French consulate in Morocco rejected a family visit visa for her mother and grandmother to attend her brother’s wedding in Paris. “This refusal ruins the event of a lifetime,” she said.
Frustrated by the unjustified visa rejection, the woman said that she had provided all the necessary documents, including wedding invitations, letters of welcome, insurance, and non-refundable tickets. She added that they provided proof of support from her, her husband, and her brother, all of whom are “financially comfortable.”
However, her mother and grandmother’s visa requests were rejected on the ground of not having “proof of sufficient means of subsistence,” the woman added, attaching the response from France’s ministry of immigration to her tweet.
Taking issue with what she described as an incomprehensible rejection, she pointed out that both her mother and grandmother are of French descent, “a status which gives them the right to come and visit their families in France even more easily.”
Read also: CGEM President Says France’s Visa Restrictions Impede Trade with Morocco
The Moroccan woman noted that she and her family have appealed the visa denial to the French consulate in Morocco. “We sincerely hope to receive a response and be allowed to live this moment [the wedding] together,” she said.
Vivid support
The tweets triggered responses from Moroccans who have gone through the same experience and have had visa requests “unjustifiably” rejected. A Twitter user said: “Same situation for me for a very risky operation on a grandson she [the grandmother] has not seen for 4 years.
Cecile Duflot, France’s former minister of Territorial Development, responded to the Moroccan woman’s tweets, urging the French embassy in Morocco to intervene and allow the family to reunite and attend their relative’s wedding.
French senator Yan Chantrel also took to Twitter to denounce the “unfair consequences of the French government’s arbitrary decision to drastically reduce the [number of] visas” granted to Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians. Chantrel attached to his tweet a letter he had written to alert French President Emmanuel Macron to the matter.
In September 2021, France decided to halve the number of visas issued to citizens from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. The move came in response to what the European country perceived as the refusal of the three Maghreb countries to facilitate the return of its citizens living in France irregularly.
Describing the measure as “unjustified,” Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said that the North African country “has always dealt with the issue of migration and the movement of individuals with great responsibility and balance.”
In addition, the Moroccan Association of Exporters (ASMEX) said last year that France’s decision could negatively affect Morocco’s foreign exports as it “toughens the procedures for obtaining visas for Moroccan drivers” who provide transport to Europe.
A recently published Schengen Visa Statistics report indicated that in 2021, France had the second highest rejection rate of visa applications submitted by applicants from third-world countries. The European country rejected 21.1% of the applications it received, said the report.
