The French Embassy in Rabat continues to provoke Moroccan visa applicants, despite great condemnation and a massive campaign denouncing French intransigence and President Emmanuel Macron’s handling of this file.
The Embassy had previously received substantial funds from the expenses of visa applications without granting them to Moroccans wishing to travel to France, which placed it in an awkward position.
A letter by which the French Embassy in Rabat replied to a former correspondence of the Moroccan Association for Consumer Protection revealed its refusal to reimburse visa application fees, despite the failure to perform the service for which the money was paid.
The Embassy stated in the letter that it refused to reimburse the rejected visa applicants’ funds because the laws in force in France and Schengen States specified that “visa fees are not reimbursed if the application is rejected.”
The President of the Moroccan Association for Consumer Protection, Bouazza El Kharrati, confirmed in a previous statement to Barlaman Today that the French Embassy’s failure to grant visas to its applicants violated consumer rights and human rights principles.
“The French Embassy in Rabat did not respect the principle of notification, nor did it inform citizens of the conditions of acceptance of the visa application, even though it obtained significant sums of money,” said El Kharrati.
He explained that the sums of money received by this Embassy were not due and unlawful because they were provided for the service. Still, the Embassy did not commit to that”, noting that this was” at a time when France was a role model in defending consumer rights. “