UN : a scathing report for France

01/08/2008
Press release
en fr

The UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, has just returned a scathing report on France’s compliance with its obligations.

In all, the Committee has made twenty-six recommendations concerning the fate of foreigners and asylum seekers, the use of DNA tests for foreigners, the prison situation, unjustified violence by law enforcement officers, anti-terrorist legislation and certain rules of criminal procedure, gender equality, the fight against discrimination, racism and anti-semitism, the proliferation of files (in particular STIC and the EDVIGE data base) and the recent law on preventive detention.

In each of these areas, the Committee has made recommendations which reflect France’s failure to respect several essential provisions of the Covenant, and which concur with the opinion of other international authorities, in particular that of the Council of Europe dealing with prisons and ill treatment of prisoners.

FIDH and LDH, who had already presented the Human Rights Committee with an alternative report to the one submitted by the French government, are pleased to note that the criticisms addressed to the government by several French and international NGOs have been taken into account.
FIDH and LDH also note that the Committee’s comments exactly reflect the criticisms repeatedly made by these two organisations.

They therefore call on the French government to modify its legislation in line with the Committee’s recommendations, and to ensure its compliance with the international covenants to which France is a signatory.

Reiterating a concern emphatically addressed to the Human Rights Committee and underlined by the Committee itself in its report, FIDH and LDH deplore the fact that France has taken six years to submit its fourth periodic report.

Like the Human Rights Committee, FIDH and LDH call on the French government to respect the next report deadline (2012), and in the interval, to do more than simply ignore the recommendations made by international authorities.

Read more