France Rejects Visa Application of Moroccan Rapper El Grande Toto
Now the Moroccan rapper’s European tour is set to be cancelled after he became another victim of France’s decision to halve the number of Schengen visas granted to Moroccans, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.
In addition, one of his official accounts on Instagram, El Grande Toto, expressed regret for this situation, writing that “having a visa today is like playing the lottery. It’s like a game of chance. I’m really getting tired of it.”
This is not the first time the rapper has been denied a visa, as last time, Egypt also refused to grant him a visa for an event due to his “status as a rapper”.
In this regard, he has also expressed his anger by sharing a video on his Instagram account against a Moroccan employee of the Egyptian consulate holding him responsible for the rejection of the visa application.
At the same time, the rapper claims that it is not the case that he has faced this problem regarding visa rejection after some bad experiences at the French, British and Belgian embassies.
In September 2021, France decided to halve the number of visas granted to Moroccans, Tunisians, and Algerians as the authorities of these countries had refused to collaborate with the French authorities to return illegal migrants that were staying in France. The restrictions have caused a great dilemma for Moroccans travelling between France and Morocco.
According to data by Schengen Visa Statistics, Moroccans topped the list of foreigners receiving visas in France, despite a year-on-year decrease of 29.6 per cent.
Such data also show that the number of Moroccan recipients of French visas was 69,408 in 2021, up from 98,627 in 2020.
Furthermore, this data reveals that Algerians were the second largest recipients of French visas in 2020. French visas issued to Algerians were 63,649, which represented a decrease of 13.1 per cent from the 73,276 recorded in 2020.
Meanwhile, the number of visas issued to foreigners on French soil increased by 2.9 per cent, marking an increase from 712,317 in 2020 to 733,069 last year.
