This legal analysis provides an overview of relevant French jurisprudence on illegal immigrant smuggling. The analysis highlights the main modus operandi used by criminals, the relevant applicable legislation and the main challenges related to its application.

This product is based on the examination of a representative sample of 25 court cases amongst those made available by the French Desk at Eurojust and others collected through legal research.

These cases relate mostly to the issuance of official documents by illegal or fraudulent means, including but not limited to, forgery of IDs, marriage of convenience or fraudulent child recognition in view to facilitate the entry, residence and transit of immigrants. Annex 2 provides a synopsis of the examined jurisprudence.

It is important to note that this work is part of a broader project conducted under the auspices of the Thematic Group on Illegal Immigrant Smuggling at Eurojust and is intended to analyse the key obstacles and solutions in investigations and prosecutions stemming from the case-law of other Member States most engaged in administering justice in relation to illegal immigrant smuggling. In this respect, the analysis of relevant Italian and Spanish jurisprudence on this same subject has already been carried out.

The final aim and envisaged product of this project is to reach – on the basis of an integrated analysis of all the domestic legal and judicial approaches assessed - a holistic overview of the key challenges and best practices in prosecuting this crime across the EU.

The analysis is essentially based on contributions from the French desk at Eurojust which communicated a series of emblematic cases. Open source information was also used. As no centralised database was consulted, the research has a strong empirical character when it comes to the analysis of the jurisprudence proper.