PARIS -

After a days-long journey on his way to escape from the Russian bombing of the city of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, Moroccan student Othman finally arrived at a reception center for refugees in the capital, Paris, but so far he does not know his fate if he will be allowed to settle in France or leave. to his mother country.

Osman told Al Jazeera Net that he spent more than a week under the Russian bombing of Kharkiv, where he studies engineering, and his escape attempt with a group of his colleagues, and with them a Moroccan mother who gave birth only 5 days ago, took more than 14 hours to get out of the city where the battles are raging. , to the city of Lviv to the west.

Also, because of the difficulty of staying there, Othman fled to the Polish border, and with tens of thousands of fleeing people crowded with their children in a very cold weather, Othman said he was lucky because the car in which he was traveling covered a distance of 500 kilometers in “only 13 hours.”

After arriving and receiving a little food, Osman decided to go to the capital, "Warsaw" directly, and then traveled to France until Tuesday, with the first group of refugees from Ukraine arriving in Paris.

But days after his arrival, Othman still does not know his fate.

He said that the instructions are clear about receiving Ukrainian citizens and providing them with protection, but this is not the case for those who do not have Ukrainian documents.

Also, many refugees fled without being able to carry their identification papers because their homes or dwellings were bombed.

A suburb of Kharkiv as photographed by the young Moroccan Othman during his escape under the bombing (Al-Jazeera)

Double action

And last Tuesday, the French Prime Minister, Jean Castix, visited the reception center for refugees from Ukraine, located in the 18th arrondissement in Paris, and supervised by the association "France Land of Asylum".

With the coordination of the Municipality of Paris and its Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, dozens of buses arrived at the reception center, and two additional halls are expected to open in it to accommodate more arrivals.

A staff member at the center told Al Jazeera Net that more than 250 Ukrainian refugees are welcomed here daily, who traveled by train or bus for free, to receive health care and food aid and to benefit from accommodation.

The 18th district in the French capital is famous for the presence of a large number of immigrants sleeping on the ground day and night or sleeping in tents on the streets, most of whom are Afghan asylum seekers.

While refugees from Ukraine receive humanitarian aid, they sleep in mobile camps and the police frequently evict them, despite the lack of accommodation provided by the authorities in the city since 2015.

This prompted a number of associations to demand the expansion of the scope of aid and the improvement of procedures, from receiving refugees to providing them with housing and the quick issuance of their residence papers, and to include all nationalities that have requested asylum in France over the past years.


condemnation of the far right

Meanwhile, many elected officials on the right and the far right on Saturday denounced the presence of "non-European" immigrants in France, and some of them claimed that a third of the arrivals from Ukraine were "not Ukrainian."

"A third of the refugees who pass through Ukraine do not come from Ukraine, but from sub-Saharan Africa, in particular those who use this new migration route to reach Europe," said Nicolas Bass, deputy presidential candidate for far-right far-right Eric Zemmour.

The dissenting member of the European Parliament from the National Assembly added: "There are those who come for economic reasons to burden our public and social accounts, while the Ukrainians have a duty of European solidarity towards them, because they are part of our civilization."

While Marion Marshall, the niece of presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who announced her support for Zemmour's party in the upcoming presidential elections, said that 30% of the refugees who arrived in France are immigrants of other nationalities, many of them Algerians.

This was indicated by Valerie Pouillet, a member of the French Senate, in a tweet published Friday on her official Twitter account.

In turn, Didier Leske, Director-General of the French Office of Migration and Integration (OFII), indicated Thursday that this percentage may be caused by cases of dual nationality, which are "difficult to deal with", as he put it.

These allegations do not correspond to the official figures published by the French Ministry of the Interior, on Friday, which indicated that of the 10,007 people examined by the border police on French soil since February 25, there were 9,761 Ukrainians, or 97.5% of them.

Refugees at a reception center in Paris arrived as part of the first group from Ukraine to France (Al-Jazeera)

The largest migration since World War II

As the Russian offensive continued, more than 2.6 million people had fled Ukraine, as of Saturday, according to the United Nations.

A number that is expected to rise and could reach 6 million refugees, which may be described as the largest exodus in Europe since World War II.

Border countries, including Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, set up reception centers to provide food, clothing, and shelter for people fleeing war.

Farther countries have pledged support, such as France, which has so far received more than 7,500 people, while 50,000 to 100,000 refugees are expected to arrive from Ukraine in the coming weeks, according to a statement by the French Interior Ministry.


Temporary protection "conditionally"

The European Union has adopted the so-called “temporary protection” for Ukrainian citizens, refugees in Ukraine and residents who cannot return to their country.

Poland received more than 1.6 million refugees, followed by Hungary with more than 246,000, and Slovakia with more than 195,000 immigrants.

Statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees indicate that more than 304,000 people have gone to other European countries as of Saturday 12 March.

It is reported that the European Union adopted this system on 20 July 2001 to deal with the massive influx of refugees due to the wars in Yugoslavia.

In 2011, Italy requested its adoption to counter the migration of Syrians fleeing the conflict in their country, but the European Commission refused.

This system gives refugees from Ukraine the right to stay for 6 months in France, with the possibility of renewal for at least one year.

This will give them the opportunity to access the labor market and benefit from the health system, as well as financial assistance to meet their needs and to find housing and education for their children between the ages of 3 and 16 years.

The French Office for Migration and Integration also provides an amount of money, according to family members, the same amount that asylum seekers receive, according to a statement by the Ministry of the Interior.

According to the circular sent recently to the French city mayors, non-Ukrainian citizens, who do not actually have refugee status in Ukraine and who can return to their country in a “safe” manner, will not benefit from the temporary protection mechanism.

This means that foreign students who were studying in Ukrainian universities will not be able to stay in France.