Judge rules all Palestinians living in Gaza are eligible for asylum in France

France’s top asylum court has ruled that all Palestinians living in Gaza are now eligible to apply for full refugee status, overturning a previous decision.

The National Court of Asylum (CNDA) issued the decision in response to an appeal from a Palestinian woman whose initial asylum request had been denied by France’s refugee authority, OFPRA.

The court found that Israeli military actions in Gaza meet the threshold for “persecution” under the 1951 Geneva Convention, qualifying the applicant—and by extension all Gazans—for refugee protection, according to JFEED.

While OFPRA had rejected the woman’s claim based on the absence of direct, personal persecution, the CNDA ruled that the conduct of war in Gaza is serious enough to constitute persecution on a group level.

It determined that Palestinians from Gaza face targeted harm based on nationality and identity. This despite France not formally recognizing Palestine as a state.

Reaction to the ruling has been divided. Secular activist Henda Ayari raised concerns about the potential consequences of the decision. “France is already grappling with internal instability, with growing tensions in many immigrant-heavy suburbs,” Ayari wrote, according to the outlet. “Now it opens its doors unconditionally to people from a region where terrorist groups operate openly, and where some welcomed the massacres of October 7.”

In 2024, France granted protection status to 65,000 asylum seekers representing 15% of the total number of protection statuses granted in the EU. This figure includes refugee status, subsidiary protection, and humanitarian status. Germany granted the highest number of protection statuses (150,500) followed by France and Spain.