France high administrative court hears police racial profiling case News
Roman Bonnefoy, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
France high administrative court hears police racial profiling case

France’s highest administrative court heard on Friday the first class action brought by six human rights groups against the state. In the class action, human rights groups and victims alleged that French police engaged in systematic racial profiling against Black and Arab men during police patrols.

The case originates with a 2021 petition to the Conseil d’Etat from 40 victims and six human rights groups. As opposed to asking for a typical remedy, such as damages, the victims and human rights groups asked the government to draft reforms to limit French police’s powers to conduct “stop and search” during patrols. The petition also called for the encounters with police to be recorded and kept as evidence, in case of any future proceedings.

The class action also rallied around the hashtag “ma rue mes droits” and created an information page listing their nine demands. It is the groups’ belief that the systematic discrimination they allege—racial profiling—requires a systematic response. The nine demands fall into four discrete categories, including the need to modify France’s legal framework for policing, instituting greater transparency, strengthening victims’ rights and changing law enforcement practices.

The French government has since repeatedly emphasized they have a zero-tolerance policy for racial and ethnic discrimination in law enforcement.

The same day as the hearing, the secretary general for France’s police union, Alliance Police Nationale, Fabien Vanhemelryck, dismissed the concerns raised by the class action. He claimed that the class action is merely a political effort seeking to paralyze the daily work of the police.

However, the French police have been under increased scrutiny for racial profiling since June when a stop and search resulted in the death of Nahel Merzouk, a North African teenager. A French police officer shot Merzouk during a traffic stop, even though a later search of Merzouk’s vehicle revealed no illicit substances or materials. France experienced widespread protests in the wake of Merzouk’s death. It also triggered an international response, with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination voicing concerns over French police’s use of excessive force and racial profiling in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court is expected to hand down their decision on the matter in two to three weeks.

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