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History of asylum and Ofpra
The first international refugee status was created following World War I (1914-18), and Ofpra has been protecting refugees and stateless persons since 1952.
We invite you to follow this journey on our historical timeline!
This chronology focuses on the history of the refugee status in France during the 20th and 21st centuries. It summarises the main texts adopted by France, the international and national institutions created for the protection of refugees, and the nationalities making the most frequent asylum requests, as well as the major events which have played a key role in these applications. It is important to note that there is not always a correlation between the rate of applications and an historic event.
Discover the 1940s
1940's
Année
1942
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The Vichy regime denounces the conventions and agreements on refugees signed by France, shuts down the Offices and creates the Bureau responsible for the interests of stateless persons at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Nansen refugees.
Année
1943
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November sees the creation of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the first post-war international organisation, an essentially technical multinational and civil mutual aid agency. At this point, the expression United Nations thus described the allied powers rather than the international organisation which would later be created.
In keeping with the allied military authorities, UNRRA is mainly responsible for provisioning displaced persons and repatriating them to their country of origin: this involved more than 10 million displaced persons. Whether they were former political deportees, Holocaust survivors, prisoners of war or former forced labourers, the “Displaced Persons” (DP) are all civilians, finding themselves outside their own country and unable to go home unaided.
UNRRA ceases its activities in 1947.
Jacqueline Massat’s card as protection officer of UNRRA. She subsequently became protection officer at the International Refugee Organization (IRO), and then at OFPRA, from 1952 to 1986.
A the end of WWII, within the context of the restoration of French republican law, the French government repeals the Vichy regime’s annulment of its ratifications of international texts on refugees. It also decides to reopen the Office for Russian Refugees and creates a unified Office for Armenian Refugees as well as the Central Office for Spanish Refugees, recognising the republican exiles as Nansen refugees.
Fernando Gonzalez Arnao y Norzagaray, diplomat, became chief advisor to the Spanish Embassy in Paris in October 1938, and was then appointed Head of the Central Office for Spanish refugees.
4 February 1945: The Yalta Conference is considered to have instigated a “division of the world” and enabled the creation of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.
Année
1946
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The International Refugee Organisation (IRO) is created in December 1946 as a temporary structure. It takes over from UNRRA for managing displaced persons in occupied Germany who have not been able to be repatriated. It develops a definition of the refugee, based for the first time on personal fears, and puts in place a procedure for individual eligibility. This is the end of the Nansen era, during which the refugee was defined by their membership of a national community.
The French delegation of the IRO, which is set up at 7 Rue Copernic in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, examines the applications for protection presented to France and supervises the Offices of national refugees.
Start of the Cold War between the Western and Soviet blocs.
Année
1948
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Main nationalities of asylum seekers: Polish, Czechs, Romanians.
Communist parties seize power in Eastern European countries. Prague coup (February 1948): The Czechoslovakian Communist party seizes power in Czechoslovakia.
King Michael I of Romania who was forced to abdicate in 1947 by the government-controlled by the Romanian Communist party.
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King Michael I of Romania who was forced to abdicate in 1947 by the government-controlled by the Romanian Communist party.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is created in 1949 on the initiative of the United States to ensure humanitarian aid for the Palestinian population, to whom it offers plans for settlement in exile when it seems impossible for them to return to Israel.
Under pressure from the Arab countries, the agency is maintained after 1951 to keep the Palestinians apart, outside the general asylum scheme as defined by the convention of 1951, and to avoid jeopardising their “right to return”.
