Going home? Syrians in Europe are not so sure

Orleans, France — Nabil Attar sprinkles sesame and pomegranate over creamy mutabal, a roasted eggplant dip from his native Syria — one of his mother’s many recipes now featured at his restaurant, Narenj. A plate of stuffed grape leaves sits nearby, ready for the swelling lunchtime crowd.

The tiny kitchen where he works seems an unlikely place for Attar, once a successful Damascus businessman specializing in electronic fund transfers. That was before Bashar al-Assad’s regime kidnapped one of his sons, nearly a decade ago.

“It was so complicated,” recalled Attar, describing extortive practices wielded by the state to fill its coffers. “I paid a lot of money to get my son back.”

In 2015, Attar and his family joined the hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing their war-torn country for Europe. He settled in the Loire Valley city of Orleans, an hour’s train ride from Paris and best known for its historical ties to France’s patron saint Joan of Arc. Then came news earlier in December that the Assad era was over.

“I never imagined in my lifetime it could happen,” Attar said, scrolling through videos of himself and fellow Syrians in Orleans, rejoicing in the dictator’s downfall. “Now Syria is free.”

For a growing number of European Union countries, Assad’s ouster is triggering more than celebrations. Amid growing anti-immigration sentiment across the region, several have suspended Syrian asylum claims on grounds that the reasons that triggered them no longer exist.

That’s the case of Germany, which took in nearly a million Syrian asylum-seekers at the peak of the refugee influx, in 2015-16. While Chancellor Olaf Scholz says those “integrated” were welcome, one opposition Christian Democratic Union lawmaker suggested paying Syrians roughly $1,040 apiece to go home — a position already adopted by neighboring Austria.

Hardening attitudes are also evident in France, despite its having only about 30,000 Syrian refugees. A CSA poll this month found 70% of French supported suspending new asylum claims. French authorities say they are studying the matter.

“Since we hear that Syrian refugees are rejoicing in the fall of dictator Assad, let’s engage in sending them home,” Jordan Bardella, president of France’s far-right National Rally, told a cheering crowd recently. “And let’s hope Europe shuts the door after they leave.”

For Syria’s diaspora in Europe and rights advocates, the vanishing welcome mat is triggering alarm. In interviews across the region, many refugees say they fear returning.

“The situation in Syria is extremely volatile, extremely unpredictable,” said Olivia Sundberg Diez, the European Union migration and asylum advocate for Amnesty International. “What is most important should be the safety of Syrian refugees and people that are seeking protection — this has to be prioritized over political interests.”

“Rushing the return of millions of Syrians would put even more pressure on Syria at an extremely fragile moment and would undermine the prospect of a successful transition,” warned Will Todman, deputy director and a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research group, in a commentary.

The debate is echoed among the Syrian community around Orleans.

“I’m worried about the country, I’m worried about the future,” said Ramez Ghadri, a Syrian gynecologist who settled in France decades ago. Of Syria’s new leaders, he added, “they’re extremists.”

Ehad Naily, a Syrian rights lawyer living outside the city, is also concerned. Like Attar, he arrived in France in 2015 and set up a local association to support fellow refugees.

“You can’t say ‘the regime is destroyed, you can now live in Syria,'” Naily said, describing shattered infrastructure and towns, and a tangle of religious and ethnic tensions simmering in his homeland. After nearly a decade living in France, his 15-year-old daughter does not speak Arabic.

“You can’t force people to leave host countries if there’s no stability there,” he said.

Attar is more optimistic about Syria’s near future.

“I believe that Syria will be better — much, much better than before,” he said.

Like other Syrians here, he described Orleans residents as welcoming the newcomers. His older son, who was kidnapped, is now a pilot. His youngest is still in school. “We never had any problem” in France, Attar said.

After receiving asylum, he learned how to run a restaurant. In 2018, he and his wife opened Narenj, which means “bitter orange” in Arabic.

“He’s well-known here. He’s got lots of loyal customers,” said Sophie Martinet, Attar’s former French teacher who has now become a friend. “He’s undeniably talented. And people like Nabil.”

Throughout the years, however, Assad’s secret service kept tabs on him, Attar said, demanding money to leave him alone. “This regime, they keep tracking everyone,” he said. “It was a business, a network. It was organized crime.”

Now a French citizen, Attar doesn’t have worry about being sent back to Syria. But he believes other refugees here with legitimate reasons to stay in France have nothing to fear.

“People who are working, who are doing their best, who are well integrated in society — they will not be affected by what’s happening in Syria,” he said.

Attar himself is eager to return to a post-Assad Syria.

“I would like to go back, visit my family, my friends,” he said. “See the streets where I worked, where I lived.”

But not for good. Today, Attar said, his life and future are in France.
…