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This article examines changes in how requests for asylum by Yugoslavs were treated in France during the Cold War. While all newcomers were, in principle, subject to the same legal regime under the Geneva Convention from 1952 to 1990, in reality asylum administration practices changed dramatically. In this article, we seek to understand how the automatic admissions that were initially the norm gradually came to an end from the mid-1960s onwards, and were replaced by a progressive sidelining of Yugoslavs, due to a questioning of the legitimacy of their refugee status and a desire to legally reclassify their presence in France.