This hope was quickly extinguished, as no structural response was forthcoming from the authorities.

In December 2020, in response to the legitimate emotion provoked by the beating of Michel Zecler, the French President himself described racial profiling as “unbearable,” finally giving a faint glimmer of hope that the French State was going to tackle the roots of this phenomenon. These practices are not only illegal under French and international human rights law, but they are above all violent, humiliating, and degrading, and make those who experience them feel like second-class citizens. These stops are one of the components of discrimination by the police that poisons the daily lives of so many people in France, and poisons relations between the population and law enforcement. The French state has been condemned on several occasions by domestic courts for the widespread practice of ethnic profiling during police stops. Numerous national and international studies have documented these illegal practices. The government should take urgent action to reform the system of police stops. In addition to the particularly lax rules governing police use of their weapons during a traffic stop, the current dramatic situation in France has brought back into the public debate the all-too-often discriminatory nature of police interaction with a segment of the population. The following is their statement:ĭiscrimination: When Will the Denial End? (Paris) – There has been serious unrest across France for the past week after police killed French 17-year-old boy of North African descent in a traffic stop. The incident has reignited discussion over police violence and discrimination in the country. Ethnic profiling by the police is a well-documented widespread problem in France. Human Rights Watch joined five other groups ( Amnesty International France, MCDS, Open society Justice Initiative, Pazapas Belleville, and REAJI) on July 5, 2023, in urging the French government to reform the system for police stops to eliminate racial profiling and other discriminatory practices. Police agents check identity documents of passerby during the lockdown in Rennes, France.

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