Leading rights organisations have filed a class action lawsuit against the French state to fix what they contend is a culture of systemic discrimination in identity checks by police.
The 220-page dossier, filled with examples of racial profiling by French police, was delivered Thursday to the Council of State, the ultimate arbiter on the use of power by authorities.
It was compiled by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Open Society Justice Initiative, along with three French grassroots organisations that work with youth.
The NGOs allege that French police target black people and people of Arab descent when deciding who to stop and check. Police officers who corroborate such accounts are among people cited in the file.
Nos 6 ONG saisissent le Conseil d'Etat pour qu'il reconnaisse que la pratique généralisée des #contrôlesaufaciès constitue un "grave manquement de l'Etat et qu'il ordonne les mesures utiles pour y mettre fin"
— HRW en français (@hrw_fr) July 22, 2021
The groups behind the lawsuit contend the practice is rooted in a culture of systemic discrimination within the police with far-reaching consequences for people of colour, often left feeling alienated from French society.
Reforms
Instead of money for victims, the suit seeks deep reforms within law enforcement to ensure an end to racial profiling, including a change in a penal code that currently gives officers carte blanche to check IDs — with no trace that they have done so.
Among other things, they also want an independent mechanism to lodge complaints and training for police officers.
- French government put on legal notice for racial profiling by police
- Paris Perspective #9: Discrimination in France and the 'George Floyd effect'
The Prime Minister’s office and the justice and interior ministries were initially served notice of the suit in late January, the first step in a two-stage process in a French class-action case.
The law gave them four months to open talks with the NGOs on how to meet their demands for change within the police, before the matter could go before a court.
Following a lack of response, the groups took the matter to the Council of State.
'Humiliating'
Antoine Lyon-Caen, the lead lawyer in the case, called the government silence “humiliating” for racial profiling victims.
Issa Coulibaly, head of Pazapas, a youth association in eastern Paris involved in the suit, said the official silence is in keeping with “institutional denial” of the problem.
“It confirms this contempt, this lack of consideration for a part of the citizenry subjected to this,” he said. Coulibaly, a 41-year-old black man, said he was subjected to numerous undue ID checks starting at the age of 14.
French courts have found the state guilty racial profiling in identity checks in the past.
(With agencies)
