French asylum requests at 'historic' levels despite Emmanuel Macron's promise to reduce migratio

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Albanian ‘refugees’ were the biggest single group of asylum applicants last year despite being from a so-called ‘safe’ country, followed by Afghans and Haitians.

Pascal Brice, the head of the French refugee protection agency Ofpra, said the number of applications had already increased by 6.5 per cent in 2016, before the latest 17 percent rise.

He said: “It confirms that France is one of the countries receiving the highest number of asylum claims in Europe.

“It’s a historic level, but not a massive influx. We can handle the situation.”

However, he added the numbers were half of those recorded by Germany last year.