The plane touched down on the tarmac of Marignane airport, near the southern French city of Marseille. Around 30 plainclothes police officers stood on the runway, ready to board five men. Turks and Afghans, they were escorted one by one, their wrists bound by handcuffs, their heads buried in their shoulders. As one of them prepared to board, he collapsed on the tarmac. The officers, used to seeing this happen, were unfazed. Mechanically, they turned the man on his side and strapped one belt around his ankles, another around his knees. Bound, the man was carried horizontally into the cabin. Within a few hours, he would land in Zagreb. His offense: applying for asylum in France, while according to his fingerprints, he had entered the European Union (EU) via Croatia. Under the Dublin Regulation, asylum applications are to be examined in the country of first entry, or the member state in which an asylum seeker initially sets foot in the EU.

A few hours earlier, another of the five escorted passengers, an Afghan, had fainted and collapsed in the parking lot next to the prefecture in Marseille. His eyes rolled back and his body went stiff. "Come on, breathe, it's going to be all right," assured one of the officers, all of whom requested anonymity. "It's the fear of leaving," another said empathetically.

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