Even obtaining an appointment to submit your file has become very complicated since the restrictions announced by Paris in September 2021.
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It is as if we had erected a wall between two countries. A wall that even separates families. In Morocco, this bitter impression no longer leaves Hamid Elmir, 49, since France refused his visa to him. Hamid is not a candidate for illegal immigration, just a father who would like to visit his student daughter. He may turn the problem in all directions, he does not understand. “I have already had Schengen visas in the past, I have a stable situation, the same job for twenty-eight years, means on my bank account …”, underlines this laboratory technician in Casablanca who “struck All doors “to find a solution … but” nothing to do “.
His request for a visa Schengen from the French consular authorities dates back to September 2021, when Paris announced to reduce by 50 % the number of visas granted to Algerian and Moroccan nationals and 30 % to Tunisians due to the “refusal” of These three Maghreb countries to repatriate their nationals in an irregular situation. A decision deemed “unjustified” at the time by Rabat. Still in force eight months later, this hardening is experienced as a collective punishment by many Moroccans who regularly go to France for family visits, business trips or tourist stays. And who find themselves the collateral victims of a retaliatory measure which has nothing to do with them.
This is the case of Nadia (who wished to keep anonymity), an executive in a multinational in Rabat, who will not be able to follow his training in France scheduled for June after having wiped two visa refusals. “However, I had a solid file: mission order with total care by my company, invitation detailing the business trip program …”, reports the thirty -something, which does not hide its frustration: “it is Ask if obtaining a visa has not become a game of chance, with battery or face! “
This experience, Youssef, 32, lived it as a “humiliation”. “I had the impression of having to beg France to let me do business with its companies and spend my money there,” said this engineer in Casablanca who, this month, could not Honor an appointment with a French supplier from his import company. “I do not hide from you that this causes a certain disgust for France,” he says. Youssef finally obtained his Schengen visa by Spain, a country towards which a growing number of Moroccans seem to be able to travel to Europe.
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