An asylum seeker sent back to France under the controversial “one in, one out” scheme faces being returned to Syria after authorities in Paris ruled it was safe to do so, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.
When the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the “groundbreaking” deal in July 2025 to stop small boats crowded with asylum seekers from crossing the Channel – by forcibly returning one small-boat asylum seeker to France in exchange for bringing one in northern France legally to the UK – they emphasised that France was a safe country for returnees.
Now, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind, a 26-year-old Kurdish man from Syria, who arrived in the UK on a small boat and was sent back to France last November, has had the asylum claim he lodged in France rejected by the authorities. The rejection letter states that Syria will be safe for him.
One of the key issues in the previous British government’s failed plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was the risk of onward return from there to unsafe countries. Syria is not on the recently updated EU list of safe countries for asylum seekers to be returned to.
Despite this, the man’s refusal letter states: “The individual … has not presented any relevant arguments that would convince the office that his personal circumstances would pose a serious and individual threat to his life or person should he return to his country.”
The asylum interview in France to determine his future, seen by the Guardian, lasted one hour and 12 minutes followed by a further interview of 49 minutes. Much of the interview focused on asking him to prove he lived in the village he said he lived in.
The man fled Syria last year after the village chief told him the Kurdish militia in the area, the YPG, had his name on a list for forced conscription. “I didn’t want to go to war and kill people,” he said.
He fled with family members, including his mother and younger siblings. They used smugglers to cross the border from Syria to Turkey, where smugglers separated him from the rest of his family and forced him into a different lorry.
“I do not know what has happened to my family. I have not managed to make contact with them since the smugglers separated us,” he said.
“I am so stressed by everything that has happened to me that my hair has started falling out. I’m 26 and I am too young to be losing my hair. I don’t know what to do now. I followed the rules under ‘one in, one out’ and claimed asylum in France, but that has been rejected.
“I am the first asylum seeker returned to France to receive this rejection. If I return to the UK on a small boat, the Home Office will catch me and put me back in detention. If I go back to Syria, the YPG militia will get me. What should I do?”
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