France Since 1952, the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) has been mandated to provide for the juridical and administrative protection of stateless persons. This makes France the country with the longest-established SDP. The precise modalities for this procedure have been elaborated through administrative and jurisprudential practice,30 rather than through legislative or sub-legislative acts. To initiate the procedure, an individual must write to OFPRA to request an application form. The request must be drafted in French and contain personal details such as date and place of birth, as well as the reason for wishing to apply for statelessness status. Once received, the application form must be filled out and submitted with all the supporting documents to the centralized, specialized statelessness authority within OFPRA located in Paris. The application is free of charge. After the claim is submitted, a certificate of registration is issued; however, this does not grant applicants any particular legal status, such as temporary residence, while an application is pending. The French SDP does not explicitly have a suspensive effect on immigration enforcement activities, such as deportation orders, at the initial stage. However, applicants can submit an urgent administrative appeal for this purpose. If an individual presents claims for both asylum and statelessness status, OFPRA will combine the two claims and responsibility for ruling on them will be conducted by OFPRA’s asylum division, which has the authority to recognize the combined status of “stateless refugee.” The application for international protection is assessed first.31 There is strong collaboration between the divisions in charge of refugee status and statelessness determination procedures. In practice, applicants who apply for refugee status determination and are found to be ineligible are referred to the SDP by the refugee status determination division when it identifies elements indicating potential statelessness. Although under the French administrative and legal frameworks an applicant bears the burden of proof, in the French SDP the burden of proof is, in practice, shared. 30 Information regarding the procedural rules for the French statelessness determination procedure is accessible on the OFPRA website, available at: https://www.ofpra.gouv.fr/fr/apatridie/procedure. 31 OFPRA, Guide des Procédures à l’OFPRA, 2018, page 45, available at: https://ofpra.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/atoms/ files/guide_des_procedures_ofpra_-_juillet_2018.pdf. 24 U N H C R > G P P AC T I O N 6 : E S TA B L I S H I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S D E T E R M I N AT I O N P R O C E D U R E S