The cost of the asylum system in France has soared to nearly €2 billion, according to information obtained by the French Senate’s Finance Committee.
A fact-finding mission launched by French presidential candidate for the centre-right Les Républicains (LR) party, Bruno Retailleau, has detailed the staggering costs of the asylum system in the cash-strapped nation.
Despite the prospect of financial sanctions for failing to bring its budget deficit into line with EU standards, the government in Paris is splashing out around €1.85 billion ($2.1bn) on the asylum system alone, Le Figaro reported.
According to the Senate Finance Committee’s report, around a billion euros are spent each year on reception centres, assessment centres, emergency accommodation, and administrative costs for the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA).
Other large-ticket spending items included direct support payments to asylum seekers awaiting immigration officials to adjudicate their claims to protection in France, which totalled over €113 million last year alone. Meanwhile, the cost of funding the National Court of Asylum (CNDA), which decides on asylum claims, was similarly around €115 million in 2025.
The report found that over the past three years, the cost of the asylum system rose by 19 per cent, which was three points higher than the increase in asylum applications, meaning significant sums of money were likely wasted.
LR Senator Marie-Carole Ciuntu said that the true cost of asylum to the French government was likely much higher, as the €2 billion per year does not include medical expenses, social welfare handouts, education costs for the children of refugees, the increased money spent on policing, or the money spent on removing failed asylum seekers from the country.
The cost to the French would likely be even higher were it not for the fact that hundreds of thousands of alleged asylum seekers departed from the coasts around Calais to the shores of England, where they invariably apply for asylum and benefit from the British welfare state.
The costs appear to be increasing at a quickening pace as well, with the report finding that the number of asylum seekers granted protection per year has risen from 33,000 in 2020 to 79,000 in 2025. In total, an estimated 736,500 people were living in France as of the end of 2025, having been granted asylum.
The number of applications has also risen significantly in recent years, with around 80,000 people applying for asylum in 2015, compared to 145,000 last year, and 154,000 during the peak in 2024.
Senator Ciuntu said that to reduce the strain on the country, France should align itself with its European neighbours on the length of residence permits and the number of years standard for refugee protection. Currently, France allows 10-year residence permits and a standard of four years for asylum protection, compared to the European average of four and two years, respectively.
The Républicain lawmaker also argued that there needs to be a mentality shift in Paris away from the notion that familial and economic migrants are justified in using the asylum system to move to France, and that there should be a “re-anchoring” of the idea that asylum is an “exceptional means of migration,” not the standard process.
Immigration and the failure of the government to consistently remove illegals and foreign criminals have taken centre stage in the upcoming presidential elections in France. A survey found last month that 83 per cent of French voters would support a “negative immigration” programme, in which migrants who entered the country illegally, committed crimes after arriving, or were deemed to be delinquent, should be sent back to their homelands.
Intriguingly, this opinion was most prevalent among young adults aged 18 to 24, 90 per cent of whom backed negative immigration, suggesting a broader cultural shift on the issue.
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