Asylum seeker sent back to France in ‘one in, one out’ scheme to be returned to Syria

An asylum seeker sent back to France under the controversial “one in, one out” scheme faces being returned to Syria after authorities in Paris ruled it was safe to do so, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind. When the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the “groundbreaking” deal in July 2025 to stop small boats crowded with asylum seekers from crossing the Channel – by forcibly returning one small-boat asylum seeker to France in exchange for bringing one in northern France legally to the UK – they emphasised that France was a safe country for returnees. Now, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind, a 26-year-old Kurdish man from Syria , who arrived in the UK on a small boat and was sent back to France last November, has had the asylum claim he lodged in France rejected by the authorities. The rejection letter states that Syria will be safe for him. One of the key issues in the previous British government’s failed plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was the risk of onward return from there to unsafe countries. Syria is not on the recently updated EU list of safe countries for asylum seekers to be returned to. …