France sees near-record high 137,000 migrant asylum claims in 2022

First-time asylum claims rose to near pre-pandemic highs in France in 2022, with over 137,000 migrants applying for international protection in the country that year. Authorities in France have reported that asylum claims in France spiked in 2022 after a lull over the COVID pandemic, with just over 137,000 migrants claiming international protection in the country for the first time last year. Other EU countries have reportedly seen considerable spikes, with Germany seeing its highest number of asylum claims since the 2016 migrant crisis, while even Ireland — an island nation to the far west of the European continent — has struggled to deal with the wave of foreign arrivals. According to the data released by the French Ministry of the Interior on Thursday, 137,046 asylum claims were made in total in 2022, representing a 31.3 per cent increase in the number of asylum claims over 2021. The number is also higher than the provisional numbers put out by the Office fo