• 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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  • Central African Republic: Seleka Forces Kill Scores, Burn Villages
    Jun 27, 2013
    Members of the Seleka rebel coalition, which overthrew President François Bozizé of the Central African Republic on March 24, 2013, have targeted and killed at least 40 civilians, and intentionally destroyed 34 villages or towns since February. Human Rights Watch researchers in early June found extensive evidence of rampant abuses in largely rural areas outside the capital, Bangui.
  • UN Human Rights Council: Adoption of the Outcome of the UPR of France
    Jun 6, 2013
    The Universal Periodic Review of France addressed a range of concerns, including on the issues of discrimination in particular with regards to identity checks and religious symbols, forced evictions and expulsions of Roma and counterterrorism laws.
  • France: Government Promises UN to End Ethnic Profiling
    Jun 6, 2013
    France should act on its promise to prohibit and prevent ethnic profiling and provide effective remedies to victims.
  • France: Hollande to Meet Saudi Official
    May 28, 2013
    President Francois Hollande of France will meet with Saudi Arabia’s interior minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Al Sa`ud, in Paris on May 28, 2013. The visit comes amid an Interior Ministry-led crackdown on human rights activists throughout the kingdom. President Hollande should press Saudi Arabia to honor its human rights obligations and cease harassment and prosecutions of human rights activists.
  • France: First Marriage of a Same-Sex Couple
    May 27, 2013
    The first same-sex wedding in France, planned for May 29, 2013, will be the country’s start of an era of full marriage equality.
  • 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.
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