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Press review December 2025

 Libya

Afrique XXI has published an investigation into Libyan ’detention centres’, where thousands of people on the move are arbitrarily detained, tortured and left to die every day. This investigation, which brings together 20 testimonies, cross-referenced with reports from human rights organisations, reveals a deadly system of imprisonment and extortion, made possible by the outsourcing of European migration policies [1].

Since 2017, the European Union has turned Libya into a testing ground for its deterrence strategy – supplying equipment, training and operational support to the Libyan ’coastguard’ [2] – thereby becoming complicit in massive human rights violations in the country and, more broadly, in the increase in lethality [3]. In February 2025, a UN Security Council report revealed the discovery of mass graves in Jikharra and Kufra [4] , where dozens of bodies of migrants, mutilated, bound, burned or dead from torture, had been found near detention ’centres’.

The investigation reveals the cynicism of the European Union and the impunity of the militias with which it collaborates, who transform warehouses and factories into clandestine prisons where rape, torture and forced labour are commonly reported [5].

 Tunisia

After more than a year and a half in detention, the trial of Sherifa Riahi, former director of Terre d’asile Tunisia, alongside 22 other people – six employees of the association and seventeen local elected officials – is further evidence of the repression against associations in Tunisia. The authorities accuse them of facilitating the entry, accommodation and settlement of migrants in so-called irregular administrative situations.

This emblematic case is part of a broader offensive led by the government of President Kaïs Saïed [6], which is using the migration issue to repress and delegitimise the work of associations [7], which it constantly accuses of being ’agents of foreign powers’ [8]. Since May 2024, local elected officials and human rights defenders have been arbitrarily prosecuted, imprisoned and detained for defending human rights.

This crackdown once again highlights the responsibility of the European Union, which continues to finance, equip and legitimise Tunisia’s migration policies in the name of combating departures [9].

 Germany

For the ’first time’ since 2011, Germany has officially deported a Syrian national to Syria. These deportations, which in principle only target Syrian nationals convicted of ’serious crimes’, contravene Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of its court in the Soering case [10], where it was ruled that any deportation that exposes the person to a real risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment ’indirectly’ constitutes a violation of Article 3.

However, despite the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Syria continues to be marked by massive human rights violations, a ruined economy and ongoing war zones [11]. Under these conditions, the safety of expelled nationals cannot be guaranteed. During a visit to Syria, the German Foreign Minister stated on 31 October 2025 that he had personally ’never seen destruction on such a scale’ and that it was ’practically impossible for people to live here in dignity’, adding that Syrians living in Germany ’could not return in the short term  [12].

Despite everything, Germany seems determined to carry out these deportations, thereby assuming responsibility for human rights violations committed against Syrian nationals.

 Austria

The Austrian Parliament has voted to extend the moratorium on family reunification for refugees with legal status and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection by six months, meaning that applications will be frozen until 2 July 2026 at the earliest.

Adopted via an amendment to the asylum law, this suspension is justified by the government on the grounds of ’overburdening’ the education system and reception facilities and presented with the stigmatising argument that it is ’necessary to preserve public order and internal security’. This decision is part of a deliberate strategy to tighten Austrian migration policy in line with electoral interests, with the FPÖ [13] leading in the polls.

To justify this new suspension of the right to family reunification protected by EU law [14], Austria is invoking for the second time in a row a so-called ’emergency clause’ based on a misinterpretation of Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

This trivialisation of the suspension of the right to family reunification in Austria, and beyond in Europe [15], leads to the forced separation of families, in disregard of the right to family life as protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

 France

On 30 December, the Council of State rejected the request [16]to annulthe decree implementing the migration agreement, known as ’One in, One out’, signed between France and the United Kingdom in July 2025. In rejecting this request, the Council of State argued that it is not its role ’to rule on the constitutionality of the treaty or agreement’ [17] or ’to rule on the conformity of a treaty or agreement with other international commitments entered into by France’ [18].

By ruling that the provisions of the agreement do not fall within the scope of the law and therefore do not necessarily require parliamentary intervention, the judgment does not alter case law, but once again confirms a strict interpretation of the areas that require legislative validation within the meaning of Article 53 of the Constitution.

In concrete terms, the Council of State leaves the executive branch with considerable leeway in this area. However, given the importance of immigration law in the public sphere, the fact that such agreements are beyond the control of the legislature is both questionable and worrying.

The Ministry of the Interior announced that, since the Retailleau circular came into force, regularisations have fallen by 42% in 2025, and by more than 50% for regularisations through work.

As a reminder, in January 2025, Home Secretary Bruno Retailleau sent a new circular to prefects, replacing the old ’Valls’ circular of 2012. This new circular significantly tightened the conditions allowing foreigners in an irregular administrative situation to apply for exceptional admission to residence, with the condition relating to the length of residence in France being increased to seven years.

Ultimately, this circular only serves to render invisible and precarious the lives of tens of thousands of people who have been living and working in France for several years. Many applications are rejected on the grounds that the foreign national constitutes ’a threat to public order’. This catch-all concept is constantly used by the public authorities to stigmatise and exclude foreign nationals in order to satisfy a xenophobic agenda. Behind these figures lies a workforce without rights, exploitable and deportable, while at the same time displaying a supposedly ’controlled’ migration policy, which allows France to assert its voice in Europe.{{}}

 Greece

In Greece, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is invoking its UN immunity to refuse to publish the annual reports of the so-called ’voluntary return’ programme, which is mainly funded by the European Union. Since 2020, the IOM has gradually reduced transparency on these activities, ceasing to publish regular reports that are supposed to be public.

This lack of transparency is particularly worrying, especially since the IOM is regularly accused of disguising expulsion policies under the label of so-called ’voluntary’ returns [19], and has already carried out returns to countries considered dangerous [20], while shirking any form of responsibility. The programme requires the signing of liability waivers that fully exempt the IOM and the Greek state from any obligation, including in cases of serious injury or death.

Beyond transparency, this immunity has direct consequences for the people concerned, who in many cases never receive the promised assistance. Already in 2017, a report by Medico International warned of the mistreatment in Greece of asylum seekers who had given their written consent to ’voluntary’ return [21].

 Facilitation Directive

In a press release dated 1 December 2025 [22], four UN experts warn of the dangers that the European Commission’s proposed directive [23] to combat ’migrant smuggling’ poses a ’serious risk of criminalising rescue and assistance actions’, such as legal support, transport and accommodation.

The reform of the so-called ’facilitation’ directive requires Member States to prosecute any assistance with entry, transit or residence, on the basis of vague and broad definitions, which will ultimately allow for the mass conviction of both people on the move and human rights defenders. Indeed, despite declarations of principle, there are no binding clauses that clearly protect acts of solidarity. Thereby, in a context of increasing repression of solidarity [24], this ambiguity paves the way for arbitrary prosecutions, justified in the name of the fight against ’migrant smuggling’, which is used to disguise policies that criminalise migrants and repress those who defend or assist them.

 Frontex

In two judgments dated 18 December 2025 [25], the Court of Justice of the European Union ordered the General Court to review its decision on pushbacks carried out jointly by the Greek authorities and Frontex agents. The European judge ruled that ’the right to effective judicial protection requires the burden of proof to be adjusted’ with regard to the European Union’s non-contractual liability for the actions of its agency Frontex, and that EU law ’imposes [Frontex] a set of obligations aimed at ensuring respect for fundamental rights in the context of return operations’, failing which it would be liable in the event of a violation.

The agency must therefore fulfil positive obligations to ensure respect for fundamental rights, includingverifying that return decisions exist for all persons whom a Member State intends to include in a return operation. The Court also decided to adopt a new requirement, whereby applicants claiming to be victims of refoulement must now ’provide sufficiently detailed, specific and consistent evidence’ of their presence at the time of refoulement in order to trigger the obligation to investigate the case.

These decisions contradict years of institutional denial and irresponsibility on the part of Frontex [26], which has been regularly criticised for its participation in or complicity with refoulement at Europe’s borders [27]. It remains to be seen whether these decisions will truly put an end to Frontex’s impunity or whether the judge’s bold move will be nothing more than a flash in the pan. {{}}

 JHA Council

The Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA), meeting on 8 December, approved a series of legislative proposals presented by the European Commission. These proposals aim in particular to speed up the implementation of the Pact on Migration and Asylum and to authorise the creation of ’return centres’ in countries outside the EU. These ’return hubs’ will be used to accommodate migrants who have been denied asylum. This system is reminiscent of the highly controversial centres in Tirana, which were set up under the Italy-Albania Protocol (2023) [28] and paralysed by the Court of Justice of the EU on 1 August 2025 [29], but which could be operational again if the text is adopted.

The Council also approved the acceleration of the implementation of the Pact in order to generalise accelerated asylum procedures at borders or in transit zones. These procedures would target in particular applicants whose nationality has an asylum recognition rate of less than 20%, as well as people from ’safe countries’.

The approved proposal also confirms a list of ’safe countries of origin’, including Egypt, Tunisia, Kosovo and Turkey, despite repeated and documented human rights violations in these states [30]. It also provides for a revision of the concept of ’safe third countries’ so that migrants can be deported to countries they have simply transited through, or even never set foot in.

These proposals illustrate the European Union’s obsession with deporting people on the move at any cost, even if it means being held responsible for violations of their rights. Although these proposals still have to be debated and voted on in the European Parliament in the coming months, the current political composition of this institution suggests that they will be adopted as proposed.

 Council of Europe

On 10 December, a majority of Council of Europe member states, at the initiative of Keir Starmer, defended the need for a ’new approach’ to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to facilitate the expulsion of migrants in so-called irregular administrative situations. The joint declaration adopted by twenty-seven states calls for a ’rebalancing’ of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) in order to remove legal obstacles to the deportation of persons convicted of ’serious crimes,’ while proposing to restrict the scope of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) to ’the most extreme situations’.

By reducing the scope of Article 3, states are sacrificing a fundamental right – which allows for no exceptions – to supposed national security imperatives, which are being used to legitimise repressive and exclusionary policies.

Presented under the misleading guise of ’modernisation’, this position is part of a worrying trend of questioning international human rights law and the legitimacy of the judiciary. It reflects a desire for political interference in the interpretation of the Convention and, in doing so, constitutes a serious breach of the principle of separation of powers.