The applicant, M.D.A., asked the Administrative Court of Nantes to annul the decision of 18 December 2017 by which the Director of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) refused to recognise the stateless person status. By judgment of 16 September 2020, the Administrative Court of Nantes rejected the request.

By judgment of 15 June 2021, the Nantes Administrative Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal brought by the applicant. The applicant lodged a cassation appeal and asked the Council of State to cancel this judgment.

The Council made reference to Article 1(1) of the New York Convention of 28 September 1954, which defines the term “stateless person” as a person whom no State considers to be its national by application of its legislation. Under the terms of article L. 812-1 of the CESEDA, the status of stateless person is recognized for any person who meets the definition of Article 1 of the New York Convention of 28 September 1954 relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. The Council further noted that the recognition of the status of stateless person implies establishing that the State likely to regard a person as its national by application of its legislation does not consider him/her as such.

With regard to the applicant in the present case, the Council noted that to reject the application for recognition of the status of stateless person of M.D.A., who was born in 1978 in Laayoune in Western Sahara, the OFPRA relied on the extract from the act of birth which was issued to the person concerned on 14 October 2013 by the civil registrar of the municipality of Laâyoune and which mentioned the Moroccan nationality, and on the person’s refusal to take steps with the Moroccan authorities with a view to obtain identity documents.

The Council further noted that the accuracy of the mention of Moroccan nationality on the extract from the birth certificate is not seriously disputed by the applicant who availed himself of this act and had availed himself of the Moroccan nationality in support of a previous and unsuccessful attempt to obtain asylum. The Council added that the mere fact that Western Sahara is a territory included in the list of non-self-governing territories within the meaning of Article 73 of the Charter of the United Nations is not sufficient to consider as stateless persons of Sahrawi origin who have received Moroccan nationality. The Council also noted that if the applicant would have renounced this nationality, such a unilateral renunciation would not open, by itself, the right to be recognised as a stateless person.

Thus, the Council confirmed the judgment of the Administrative Court of Nantes and the OFPRA’s decision to reject the request for recognition of statelessness.