Glossary

Travel Document for Foreign Minors (DCEM). Foreign minors residing in France do not need a residence permit. However, to make it easier for them to travel outside France, they can obtain a travel document for foreign minors: the DCEM. This document allows young people, after a trip abroad, to justify their legal residence in France and to be readmitted, with a visa exemption, to France or at the Schengen Area’s external borders. It must be accompanied by a valid passport.

Delegation of signature authority is a procedure whereby an administrative authority authorises another authority, which is subordinate to it in reporting terms, to act on its behalf, in one or a series of determined cases. As far as Ofpra is concerned, section heads, experienced protection officers or rédacteurs (specialist caseworkers within Ofpra's Protection division) sign decisions or certain documents on behalf of Ofpra's Director-General.

Decision made by the Prefect to deport an irregular migrant from French territory. This measure is not final and should not be confused with expulsion.

The General Directorate for Foreign Nationals in France (Direction Générale des Étrangers en France/DGEF) was set up by the decree of 12 August 2013. It handles all questions to do with foreign nationals at the Ministry of the Interior. It is competent in matters bearing on:
•    visa regulations,
•    the general rules in terms of the admission, residence and performance of a professional activity in France of foreign nationals,
•    combating irregular immigration, illegal labour and document fraud,
•    asylum,
•    support for immigrant populations,
•    access to French nationality.

Since 1 June 2010, all of the documents in an asylum seeker's application have been scanned. Ofpra launched this procedural upgrading operation back in 2007, setting up a new department: the Receipt, Recording and Digitisation Mission (MAEN). Henceforth only the digital application is legally valid and, since the end of 2010, asylum applications have been forwarded to the National Asylum Court (CNDA) in digital format.

According to the United Nations definition, internally displaced persons are “people who are forced to flee their homes, often for the very same reasons as refugees – war, civil conflict, political strife, and gross human rights abuse – but who remain within their own country and do not cross an international border”.

Extended formation of the National Asylum Court (CNDA) with the role of settling new questions of law and ensuring consistency of case law.

Pursuant to this text, an asylum application may only be considered by one European country (this text applies to all EU countries, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein). To determine which country is responsible for the asylum application, several criteria are taken into account:
•    if the asylum seeker so wishes , the State responsible will be the one where a member of his/her family has been allowed to reside as a refugee or asylum seeker (principle of family unity)
•    the State which issued the asylum seeker with a valid residence document or visa
•    the State whose borders the asylum seeker has irregularly crossed (responsibility of this State shall cease 12 months after the date on which the irregular border crossing took place).
Where no Member State responsible can be designated on the basis of these criteria, the first Member State in which the application for international protection was lodged shall be responsible for considering it.
The so-called "Dublin III" Regulation has applied in France since 1 January 2014.