• Human Rights in France

    The French government failed to pursue necessary reforms to counter abusive identity checks, including ethnic profiling. UN human rights authorities expressed concern over a campaign to dismantle informal Roma camps and remove migrant Roma from France. Modifications of the Criminal Code, first proposed by the previous administration after a man claiming to be inspired by al-Qaeda shot seven people, allow prosecution of French citizens and legal residents for participating in terrorism training abroad. A new, improved sexual harassment law protects against harassment on the grounds of gender identity, and the French parliament is expected to legalize same-sex marriage.

  • © Fatah Sadaoui for the Collective against Profiling
    France: Ending Ethnic Profiling
    Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s recent endorsement of stop forms for police identity checks is an important step. While community groups have hailed the announcement, police unions have objected to what they describe as a precipitous and unfair measure that will impede their work. In reality, momentum has been building for some time toward reform of the identity check procedure in France.
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France

  • Russia: Hollande Should Press Putin on Rights
    Feb 22, 2013
    President Francois Hollande of France should urge President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to reverse his administration’s crackdown on civil society and erosion of human rights when the two leaders meet on February 28, 2013.
  • Divided We Fall: Intolerance in Europe Puts Rights at Risk
    Feb 14, 2013
    An Afghan migrant is stabbed in the heart on the streets of Athens. Black-shirted paramilitaries linked to Hungary’s third-largest political party march through a Roma neighborhood shouting, “You will die here.” A neo-Nazi gang commits a string of murders of Turkish immigrants in Germany. An ideologue driven by hatred of “multiculturalism” kills 67 mostly young people on a Norwegian Island.
  • François Hollande’s ‘Change’ Is More of the Same on Côte d’Ivoire
    Feb 6, 2013
    Les mêmes causes produisent les mêmes effets (“The same causes produce the same effects”). It’s a phrase I’ve heard Ivorian lawyers, taxi drivers, and civil society leaders utter repeatedly in recent months to describe Côte d’Ivoire’s uneven prospects for reconciliation so long as President Alassane Ouattara’s government makes little progress toward impartial justice and addressing abuses by the security forces. But the phrase applies just as aptly to the failure of Côte d’Ivoire’s most important partner, France, to publicly make human rights issues a priority in its diplomatic relationship.
  • EU: Human Rights Sidelined Amid Crisis
    Jan 31, 2013
    National and European Union (EU) leaders failed to address serious human rights concerns in the region amid economic and political crisis in 2012, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2013. Human Rights Watch documented human rights concerns in the EU, highlighting events in 10 member states and EU-level developments in migration and asylum, discrimination and intolerance, and counterterrorism policy.
  • France: Approve Marriage Equality
    Jan 21, 2013
    The French National Assembly should approve a bill for marriage equality. Supporters of the government’s plans for marriage equality will hold a demonstration on January 27, 2013, in Paris. More than 300,000 people opposing the measure held a protest on January 13.
  • Letter to Members of the French Parliament
    Jan 21, 2013
    On the eve of your parliamentary debates regarding whether to support marriage equality in France, I invite you to look to another European country that went through the same discussions and soul-searching about 15 years ago. In 1994, as a member of the Dutch parliament, I proposed to introduce marriage equality legislation. Years of debate ensued, in part because nowhere else in the world had such legislation been introduced.
  • UAE/France: Hollande Should Convey Rights Concerns
    Jan 12, 2013
    President François Hollande of France should publicly and privately convey concerns about deteriorating human rights conditions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on his visit there. Hollande is scheduled to arrive for his first official visit to the UAE on January 15, 2013.
  • France: Ombudsman Supports Identity-Check Reform
    Oct 16, 2012
    The French defender of rights, the national ombudsman, acknowledged in a report the need for reform to tackle abusive and discriminatory identity checks in France and restore trust between police and the population, but failed to take a clear position on key recommendations, a group of French and international organisations said today.
  • France: Respect Hollande’s Commitment on ID Checks
    Oct 5, 2012
    The French government should respect President François Hollande’s commitment during his election campaign to “fight against ethnic profiling and abusive practices during identity checks,” eight national and international organizations said in a document sent on October 5, 2012 to the president, the government, members of parliament, and the Defender of Rights.
  • France: Prime Minister Abandons Identity Check Reform
    Sep 28, 2012
    Human Rights Watch and seven other organizations issued the following statement on September 28, 2012, in response to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault’s statements backtracking on urgently needed reform of abusive identity check procedures in France.
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