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During the third quarter of 2025, France recorded its highest number of accepted first-instance asylum applications since 2014, with 16,245 approvals, over four times the 3,380 recorded in the first quarter of 2014.

These numbers have increased sharply since the end of 2020. Since the beginning of the European migrant crisis in 2015, France has received more and more asylum applications.

The consequences of the refugee crisis in France

Since 2015, more than 268,000 immigrants have taken the Western Mediterranean route to reach the European Union. Consequently, France has seen its total number of asylum applications rise since 2015. In 2023, there were a total of 142,496 asylum applications in the country, compared to 57,337 in 2011, a few years before the European migrant crisis. More than 41,660 refugees successfully qualified for asylum in France in 2021.

French public opinion on immigration and welcoming refugees

The European migrant crisis has been a sensitive political question not only in France but in all the EU.ÌýIn a survey from 2023, most French citizens declared that they did not think that their country could welcome more immigrants. However, they were also a majority to think that it was France’s responsibility to welcome migrants fleeing war and poverty.Ìý