The applicant, an Ivorian minor represented by her mother, claimed the annulment of the negative decision issued by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) on 25 May 2023 where the OFPRA rejected the minor’s application for international protection.

Firstly, the French Court of Asylum (CNDA) assessed the appeal with regard to procedural breaches. The CNDA found that the French authorities failed to conduct an interview in accordance with the provisions of the French Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners and the Right of Asylum (CESEDA) which provided that the national authorities must carry out an individual hearing for each asylum applicant. Since the application was submitted by a minor, the asylum legislation requires that minors are assisted and represented during the procedure before OPFRA by a legal representative, a parent or an ad-hoc administrator. The court noted that the mother of the applicant was not invited for a personal interview, the father of the applicant was also not heard by the OPFRA. As such, the CNDA found that the personal interview did not meet the legal provisions as none of the minor’s parents were called to appear for an interview.

On the merits, the case concerned the applicant’s risk to female genital mutilation practiced by her maternal grandparents in the event of a return to her country-of-origin. Within the application, it was noted that although both the maternal and paternal family members of the applicant were used to performing genital mutilation on newborns, the paternal family members opposed to the practice on the applicant.

The applicant’s mother was granted subsidiary protection by a court decision on 5 May 2017 on behalf of her own mother because she was also an accompanied minor at the time. Thus, the subsidiary protection was extended to the applicant’s mother in accordance with the provisions of Article 23 of the recast Directive 2011/95/EU on maintaining family unity.

Therefore, the case concerned the possibility to extend the international protection to one’s grandchildren under the principle of family unity.

The CNDA noted that the CESEDEA transposes the European law and provides a derived right to subsidiary protection to accompanied children of direct beneficiaries of the protection. Namely, the provisions of Article L.531-23 do not allow the granting of protection to a minor unless his parents had a personal asylum application. In the present case, the mother of the applicant did not benefit of subsidiary protection following an application for international protection personally submitted by her but based on the status granted by the OPFRA in her quality of accompanied minor, for the sole reason that her mother, thus grandmother of the applicant, was granted subsidiary protection.

However, the court annulled the decision issued by the OFPRA, on account of the procedural breach regarding the personal interview of accompanied minors. The case was referred back for re-examination.