The applicant, an Afghan national, requested international protection in France due to alleged persecution based on political opinions, as he was a former employee of the Afghan Police. On 28 December 2018, the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) rejected the applicant's request for asylum. On appeal, on 14 October 2020, the National Court of Asylum (CNDA) allowed the request and recognised the applicant's refugee status. Upon appeal before the Council of State, the CNDA decision was annulled.

The Council of State noted that political opinions likely to give rise to the right to international protection, according to the recast Qualification Directive, can be regarded as resulting solely from being a member of a state institution when the institution makes such access conditional upon adhering to such opinions, or act on their sole basis, or fight exclusively all those who oppose them. In addition, refugee status is likely to be granted to an applicant who has a well-founded fear of suffering acts of persecution in the country of origin because of the past activities within the state institution, without being able to benefit from the effective protection of the national authorities, when, having regard to all the circumstances of the case relating to his individual situation, in particular the nature and level of the responsibilities he has exercised there, to the activities in which he took part, to the personal motivations which led him to commit within the state institution and to the perception that the actors of persecutions may have, a link can be established between these persecutions and political opinions attributed to him personally.

The Council noted that the CNDA, in recognising refugee status, based its reasoning in particular on the fact that, even if the applicant's commitment to the national Afghan police cannot in itself reflect the expression of a political conviction, political opinions favorable to the state authorities are necessarily imputed by the Taliban because of their fight against state authorities. Thus, the CNDA did not seek the existence of a link between the persecutions alleged by the applicant and the political opinions that the Taliban would attribute to him personally.

The Council considered that the CNDA erred in doing so, and thus, it allowed the appeal lodged by the OFPRA, annulled the contested decision and sent the case back to the CNDA.