“Are we going to have to return to Syria?” asks the son of Madeleine*, a Syrian lawyer who has taken refuge in Paris since 2018 and who prefers to remain anonymous. At 10 years old, the child “born under mortar fire” only feels at home in the French capital and the idea of returning to his country of origin worries him. Since the announcement of the fall of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, 2024, the question of return has animated the approximately 6.6 million Syrians exiled across the world. In the days following the ousted president’s departure to Russia, thousands have already flocked to border crossings in Türkiye and Lebanon.
In Europe, which has welcomed around 1.05 million Syrian refugees since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, the question of return quickly emerged in the political debate. Germany, where more than 780,000 Syrians have gone into exile, and Austria, with its 113,000 refugees, are already drawing up plans for large-scale expulsions. On December 13, conservative Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer even proposed “a return bonus of 1,000 euros” to encourage refugees to leave.
In total, eight countries have already suspended the consideration of asylum applications. Like its neighbors and while nearly 44,000 Syrians have benefited from protection by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra), France has mentioned, through the Ministry of the Interior , the freezing of new asylum applications.
In this cacophony of figures and political announcements, one voice struggles to be heard: that of the Syrian diaspora. After more than a decade…
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