Refugees in Limbo: EU countries look to reform asylum system

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Refugee issues are also topping the agenda of EU leaders, who are gathering in Brussels for a summit. It's widely agreed that reform is needed for the bloc's current asylum system. But as Elena Casas reports from Paris, member countries can't quite agree on how.

Right next to Paris' busy ring road sit a few hundred tents. People here come from Sudan, Somalia or Afghanistan, and they want to seek asylum in France. Jamal is Somali and has been sleeping here two months. He didn't want us to show his face.

JAMAL SOMALI REFUGEE "The noise from the cars is really horrible since we are living between two big roads, you can't sleep decently. The conditions are really bad, it's very hot and damp inside the tent, when it rains it rains inside."

Jamal says he had to leave Somalia because Islamist group al-Shabab were trying to force him to join. He says he's disappointed in France.

JAMAL SOMALI REFUGEE "I don't blame France, I blame my own illusions, because what I had in my head was so different from the reality."

Jamal, like most people here, has yet to actually apply for asylum in France. The majority have travelled through another EU country, and that means that under the so-called Dublin system, France can send them back there.

This group of Afghans already had their requests rejected in Germany.

SAYEED AFGHAN ASYLUM SEEKER "Germany is very hard for asylum, very hard for documents."

Many people here think it's easier to get asylum in France than elsewhere - a view the government wants to dispel.

ELENA CASAS PARIS "French prime minister Edouard Philippe said last week that asylum requests in France are up 22 per cent last year - according to him, many of those people have been refused asylum in other EU countries. He announced the French Parliament will debate new measures to control migration in September."

The government and refugee advocates agree on one thing - any real solution has to be Europe wide.

ERIC PLIEZ, DIRECTOR GENERAL AURORE ASSOCIATION "We're forcing people to wander around Europe, because they don't want their asylum case examined in the first country they arrived in, and anyway in general these countries - Italy, or countries in Eastern Europe - refuse to take them back. So Europe is creating this population that's sleeping outside, and the Dublin rules need to be completely rewritten."

French police have destroyed dozens of camps like this in the Paris area over the last three years, each time moving the residents to refugee centres.

But the state's accommodation is over capacity, meaning that if they're not eligible to apply for asylum in France, and the countries they travelled through won't take them back, they're likely to end up back on the streets.

Elena Casas, CGTN, Paris.