The French government has urged the IT group Capgemini to review its activities following revelations that one of its US subsidiaries had signed a contract with the United States immigration police (ICE), as lawmakers from the far left announced a parliamentary initiative targeting the agency.
“I am urging Capgemini to shed light, in an extremely transparent manner, on the activities it carries out, on this policy, and no doubt to review the nature of these activities,” economy minister Roland Lescure said in response to a question from a member of parliament.
According to information published last week by the association L’Observatoire des multinationales and reported on Monday evening by public broadcaster France 2, Capgemini supplied ICE with a tool for identifying and locating foreign nationals.
In a message posted on Sunday on the social network LinkedIn, Capgemini chief executive Aiman Ezzat said he had learned “from public sources” of the signing in December of a contract between the group’s US subsidiary and ICE.
US immigration force ICE to help with security at Winter Olympics in Italy
He said the subsidiary operated independently under US law, with strict separation from the group’s central management.
The subsidiary “takes decisions autonomously, has segregated networks, and…the Capgemini group is unable to access any classified information or classified contracts,” he said, adding that a review of the content and scope of the contract had been launched.
Speaking in the National Assembly, Lescure said he had raised the matter with the company, stressing that this explanation was insufficient and that a group must know what is happening within its subsidiaries.
'Immediate and public cessation'
Capgemini’s CGT trade union called for “the immediate and public cessation of any collaboration with ICE”, saying such partnerships were contrary to the group’s stated values and made it complicit in serious human rights violations.
Against this backdrop, lawmakers from La France insoumise (LFI) announced on Tuesday that they had tabled a non-binding resolution against ICE.
The text calls on the French government to publicly condemn alleged human rights violations by the agency, request the opening of an international investigation, freeze European assets of ICE agents and officials identified as perpetrators or instigators of abuses, and ban those individuals from entering the European Union.
'Supremacist militia'
At a press conference at the National Assembly, LFI lawmaker Hadrien Clouet sharply criticised what he described as a “supremacist militia disguised as a federal immigration service”, accusing the agency’s leadership and supervising ministers of guaranteeing impunity for its agents.
“It is time for France to assume its responsibilities,” Clouet said, also deploring the fact that “private French companies collaborate and work with ICE”, referring to press reports about Capgemini’s US subsidiary developing software to detect and locate foreign nationals.
LFI parliamentary leader Mathilde Panot said her group hoped the resolution would be adopted.
The federal immigration police and border police have been implicated in the deaths of two demonstrators shot dead in Minneapolis, Minnesota, prompting a wave of outrage in the United States.
According to the city’s mayor, federal agents deployed there were due to begin leaving the city on Tuesday, as President Donald Trump sought to ease tensions.
An ICE spokesperson told AFP that federal agents would also be deployed on support missions abroad, including in Italy for the Winter Olympic Games, scheduled to take place from 6 to 22 February.
