On Thursday, prominent human rights watchdog groups including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International France, along with three other French rights organizations, lodged a formal complaint with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). These groups sought the committee’s intervention in addressing racial profiling by law enforcement agencies in France.
The groups calling on CERD’s intervention were not just by HRW and Amnesty, but also by the Community House for Solidarity Development (MCDS); Pazapas; and Equality, Anti-discrimination, Interdisciplinary Justice Network (Reaji). They asked the committee to address the alleged racial profiling and deep-rooted bias within the French police force. Over recent years, the French police have repeatedly been criticized for discriminatory practices during identity checks, which disproportionately target Black, Arab young men, or those perceived as such.
In October 2023, the Conseil d’État— or the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court— acknowledged the existence of racial profiling in law enforcement practices. While this was a noteworthy development, the court ruling stopped short of demanding a shift in the established culture of discrimination within French police, and no comprehensive measures were ordered to rectify this problem.
The watchdog groups cited this lack of action as the trigger for their complaint to CERD — a panel of independent experts assigned with overseeing the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) by its signatories. According to HRW, France is failing to meet its obligations under several international treaties by not taking the necessary actions to eradicate the practice of racial profiling.
This isn’t the first time HRW has raised concerns regarding law enforcement in France. The group previously sounded the alarm about excessive force after the fatal police shooting in June 2023 of Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old boy of Algerian and Moroccan descent. The incident, which occurred in a Paris suburb and involved police officer Florian Menespiler, resulted in widespread national protests and riots. International organizations and human rights groups called on France to address racism and bias in the police force following the incident.
In their formal complaint, the watchdog groups asked CERD to recognize the systemic nature of racial profiling in France, proposing specific measures for the French government to tackle this issue effectively. Among other suggestions, the groups advised the government to redefine the legal framework for police identity checks to preclude discrimination and to change institutional parameters, guidelines, and police training. They specifically recommended introducing anti-discrimination workshops and seminars and modifying the police’s public interaction approach.
The complaint is now in CERD’s hands, who had already expressed concern about what it views as systemic racism within the French police force. The French government, HRW emphasizes, must act to ensure that no one in France feels like a second-class citizen because of their perceived ethnicity or skin color.