Held in a detention centre (CRA): your rights and the deadlines, hour by hour

Placement in an immigration detention centre (CRA) is not a criminal sanction: it is a police measure intended to prepare removal. It remains a deprivation of liberty, strictly regulated, and open to challenge before two different courts, within very short deadlines.

On what conditions may someone be detained?

Article L. 741-1 CESEDA allows the prefect to order detention, for ninety-six hours, of a foreign national subject to a removal decision where they do not offer effective guarantees that they will not abscond and where no other measure (house arrest in particular), appears sufficient. The risk is assessed under the criteria of article L. 612-3 or in the light of the threat to public order the person represents.

Two safeguards frame the measure. First, a foreign national may only be detained “for the time strictly necessary for their departure”, the administration being required to act with all due diligence (art. L. 741-3). Second, a minor under eighteen may not be the subject of any detention order (art. L. 741-5, since the Act of 26 January 2024; deferred application in Mayotte to 1 January 2027). That prohibition ends a practice repeatedly condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, notably in M.D. and A.D. v. France (22 July 2021, no. 57035/18) and A.C. and M.C. v. France (4 May 2023, no. 4289/21).

Two courts, two deadlines not to be confused

This is the main source of mistakes, including for relatives trying to help: the detention order and the removal decision are not reviewed by the same court.

• The judicial judge (the sitting judge of the judicial court), reviews the deprivation of liberty. The detention order may be challenged before them within ninety-six hours of notification (art. L. 741-10).
• The administrative court reviews the OQTF and the decisions accompanying it. Where the person is in detention, those decisions must be challenged within forty-eight hours (art. L. 614-2 and R. 921-2-1 CESEDA), the court ruling within ninety-six hours of the expiry of the time limit for appeal (art. L. 921-2 CESEDA).

The two remedies are independent: release does not make the OQTF disappear, and the annulment of the OQTF cannot be argued before the detention judge. Specific deadlines also apply to certain asylum seekers and to transfer procedures to another European State (five and seven days, art. R. 921-2-1 CESEDA).

The timetable of extensions

• Ninety-six hours: the period decided by the prefect (art. L. 741-1).
• Beyond that, the prefect must apply to the sitting judge, who may authorise a first extension of twenty-six days (art. L. 742-1 and L. 742-3): thirty days in total.
• Two further thirty-day extensions are then possible, only in the cases listed in article L. 742-4: sixty days, then ninety days at most.
• Derogatory regimes (terrorism, or a final conviction for certain serious offences), allow up to one hundred and eighty, or even two hundred and ten days (art. L. 742-6 and L. 742-7, as amended by the Act of 27 July 2026).

Your rights inside the centre

Article L. 744-4 requires that the detained person be informed, as soon as possible and in a language they understand, of their right to request the assistance of an interpreter, a lawyer and a doctor, and to communicate with their consulate and any person of their choice. Reception, information and support services must also enable them to exercise those rights effectively and to prepare their departure (art. L. 744-9).

This is no formality. When ruling on an extension request, the judge verifies, from the register provided for in article L. 744-2 and signed by the person concerned, that they were fully informed of their rights and put in a position to assert them from their arrival at the detention facility (art. L. 743-9). Late or incomplete notification of rights is one of the most frequently successful grounds for ending detention.

Appealing: twenty-four hours

The sitting judge’s order may be appealed to the First President of the court of appeal within twenty-four hours of its delivery (art. R. 743-10), from notification where the person was not present at the hearing. The notice of appeal must state its grounds, failing which it is inadmissible (art. R. 743-11), and the First President rules within forty-eight hours (art. L. 743-21).

The Court of Cassation ensures that this requirement does not become a discretionary filter: in a judgment of 13 May 2026 (1st Civ., no. 25-12.023), it held that only appeals that are manifestly inadmissible (such as those devoid of any reasoning, regardless of how relevant that reasoning may be), may be dismissed without summoning the parties.

Note: an appeal does not in principle suspend the order. The public prosecutor may however ask for suspensive effect, and it applies as of right in terrorism-related cases (art. L. 743-22).

The first hours: what to do

• Note the exact time the detention order was notified: every deadline flows from it.
• Ask for a lawyer immediately, it is a right, and legal aid may be requested.
• Have a relative informed: they can gather passport, proof of address, accommodation certificate and evidence of family ties, all of which count as guarantees against absconding.
• Report any health problem without delay and ask to see the doctor.
• Keep a copy of both the OQTF and the detention order: they are challenged separately, and the two deadlines run in parallel.

The firm acts on an emergency basis in detention proceedings, before the sitting judge and before the administrative court, in Paris and the Île-de-France region.