France rejected almost 32,000 Schengen visa applications for Algerian nationals in 2021: report

France rejected 32,000 Schengen visa applications by Algerian nationals in 2021, a report by SchengenVisaInfo has said.

This amounted to 40 percent of Schengen visa applications from Algerian nationals, according to data retrieved by the news site.

The rejections by France accounted for 80.5 percent of the total Schengen visa rejections for Algerian nationals, the site said.

Overall, a total of 140,212 Algerians applied for a Schengen visa last year, with only 83,941 of them receiving approval for their applications, meaning that the remaining 32 per cent had their application refused.

Spain ranked second after France among the Schengen area countries that did not issue Algerian applicants with a visa.

Despite the high rejection rates, France did accept just under 40,000 applications for Algerians last year.

Besart Barjami, the founder of the SchengenVisaInfo website, said low Covid-19 vaccination rates among Algerians were a possible factor in the high number of denied visa applications.

Algerian nationals have for years had high Schengen visa rejection rates, which stood at 38 percent in 2020, 43 percent in 2019 and 45.5 percent in  2018.

France was the top rejecting country throughout each period.

France last year slashed the number of visas available to Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian nationals accusing the three North African countries of failing to cooperate in the return of their nationals who had their asylum applications denied.

The move was condemned by all three North African countries.