On 5 May 2010 the applicant, of Afghan origin, received refugee status in France. On 27 November 2013, he was convicted to a four-year imprisonment sentence for aiding the illegal entry, movement or stay of a foreigner in France or in a State party to the Schengen Convention, in an organized gang, and for participation in an association of criminals for the preparation of an offense punishable by ten years' imprisonment, as well as, on a complementary basis, a ban from French territory for a period of ten years.

The OFPRA withdrew the refugee status of the applicant by decision of 23 November 2018 on the basis of par 2 of Article L. 711-6 CESEDA. The applicant appealed and on 2 March 2020 the CNDA allowed the appeal holding that it did not result from the investigation before it that the applicant's actions were of sufficient gravity to be regarded as serious violations of human rights having undermined the aims and principles of the United Nations. The CNDA also considered that his presence in France did not constitute a serious threat to society, since he had apparently behaved in an exemplary manner in detention, that there was no evidence to suggest that he continued to maintain links with his former accomplices, that he had not been unfavorably noticed since his release in January 2015, that he was now living with his wife, with whom he had had a child, and that he had demonstrated professional and emotional stability and a proven desire to integrate into French society.

The Council of State held that the criminal offenses committed by a refugee cannot, by themselves, legally justify a decision to terminate refugee status, and it is up to OFPRA and, in the event of appeal, to the National Court of Asylum, to examine the seriousness of the threat posed by the presence of the person concerned in France, taking into account, among other elements, the nature of the offenses committed, the fundamental interests of society to which the repetition of these offenses would expose society and the risk of such repetition. The only circumstance that a refugee, convicted of acts which, when committed, establish that his presence constituted a serious threat to society, has refrained, after his release, from any reprehensible behavior, does not imply, by itself, at least before the expiration of a certain period, and in the absence of any other significant positive element in this sense, that this threat has disappeared. In this case, the refugee was sentenced for his involvement in the organization of an illegal immigration network destined for various European countries of which he was one of the main instigators, and was, moreover, at the date of the contested decision, still subject to a ten-year legal ban from French territory. Although he claimed to have ceased all ties with the members of his network and has not attracted the attention of the authorities since his release, these circumstances, as well as his family situation, the fact that he exercises a professional activity as a temporary worker and his learning of the French language, do not allow it to be taken for granted that his presence in France no longer constituted, at the date of the contested decision, a serious threat to French society. The Council thus held that the OFPRA was justified in maintaining that the CNDA incorrectly qualified the facts submitted to it. The Council sent the case back to the CNDA.