Amnesty International Report 2015/16 - France

French Republic
Head of state: François Hollande
Head of government: Manuel Valls

In January and November, several attacks targeting the population were carried out in and around the capital, Paris, killing over 140 people and injuring hundreds. In January, the government adopted further counter-terrorism measures. On 14 November, it formally declared a state of emergency that was subsequently extended by Parliament until February 2016.

COUNTER-TERROR AND SECURITY

In January, violent attacks in Paris on journalists at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and at a Jewish supermarket left 17 people dead. In the aftermath of the attacks, the government issued several decrees aimed at implementing some of the provisions of the 2014 anti-terrorism law. In particular, on 14 January, the government issued a decree banning travel abroad for the purposes of committing a terrorist act as defined under French law. According to the Ministry of Interior, 222 individuals were subjected to such a travel ban between January and November.

On 5 February, authorities issued a decree regulating the administrative blockage of websites, including those deemed to incite or justify terrorist acts. According to the Ministry of Interior, 87 websites were blocked from January to November. Moreover, about 700 individuals were prosecuted for inciting or justifying terrorism, on the basis of a new provision ("apology of terrorism") which had been introduced in the 2014 anti-terrorism law. Due to the vague definition of the offence, in many cases authorities prosecuted individuals for statements that did not constitute incitement to violence and fell within the scope of legitimate exercise of freedom of expression.

After a series of eight seemingly co-ordinated armed attacks in and around Paris on 13 November that resulted in 130 deaths and hundreds of injuries, the government declared a state of emergency. On 20 November, Parliament passed a bill that extended the state of emergency until 26 February 2016, amended the 1955 law on the state of emergency, and provided for a range of measures that deviated from the ordinary criminal law regime. The measures included house searches without a warrant, forced residency and the power to dissolve associations or groups broadly described as participating in acts that breach public order. Under the law, pre-judicial authorization for these measures was not required.

In December, the government proposed a bill to include a provision on the state of emergency in the Constitution.

According to the Ministry of Interior, police carried out 2,029 house searches between 14 November and 1 December. In the same period, 296 individuals were subjected to forced residency. Public demonstrations were banned in the Paris region (Ile-de-France) shortly after 13 November. The ban was extended to other regions between 28 and 30 November, when several demonstrations were scheduled to take place in the context of the Paris Climate Conference (the 21st Conference of Parties, known as COP 21).

Several Muslim individuals were targeted for house searches or forced residency on the basis of vague criteria, including religious practices deemed by the authorities to be "radical", and thus constituting a threat to public order or national security. The police also searched mosques and other Muslim prayer spaces, and in some instances shut them down. The authorities imposed forced residency on 26 environmental activists in the context of the COP 21 on the basis of their possible engagement in violent demonstrations.

SURVEILLANCE

In July, Parliament passed a law that granted the Prime Minister the power to authorize – without independent judicial oversight and only upon consultation with an ad hoc committee – the use of surveillance measures on the national territory for a wide range of goals, including the protection of economic or overarching foreign policy interests. The measures included the power to employ mass surveillance techniques for the purpose of tackling terrorism.

In November, another law was passed, allowing the mass surveillance of all electronic communications sent to – or received from – abroad. The Prime Minister retained the power to authorize such surveillance, without any prior consultation or independent judicial oversight, for the purpose of achieving vaguely defined goals.

TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT

On 6 February, the French and Moroccan governments signed an additional protocol to their bilateral convention for legal co-operation on criminal matters. The agreement facilitated the transfer to Moroccan authorities of complaints filed in France by Moroccan victims of alleged crimes perpetrated in Morocco.

In April, the Paris Court of Appeal approved a petition to call Geoffrey Miller, former chief of the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to give testimony in the cases of two French former Guantánamo detainees, Nizar Sassi and Mourad Benchellali, who had alleged that they were tortured at the detention centre.

On 17 September, the Prime Minister signed an order to extradite Kazakhstani national Mukhtar Ablyazov to Russia, despite the high risk of unfair trial or onward transfer from Russia to Kazakhstan, where he would be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. An appeal was pending before the Council of State at the end of the year.

REFUGEES' AND MIGRANTS' RIGHTS

Approximately 5,000 migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees continued to live in harsh conditions in an informal settlement in the northern city of Calais.

On 23 November, the Council of State found that living conditions in the informal settlement in Calais amounted to inhuman treatment, and ordered the immediate installation of water and sanitation services in the settlement.

Both the UN Human Rights Committee and the national Ombudsperson raised concerns over instances of violence, harassment and ill-treatment of migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees by law enforcement agents in Calais. On 2 December, the independent authority overseeing places of detention criticized the abusive use of administrative detention targeting migrants in Calais.

In July, a new asylum law was passed with the aim of strengthening procedural guarantees for asylum-seekers, shortening the waiting time for assessing applications and protecting asylum-seekers' economic and social rights.

Authorities agreed to relocate almost 31,000 asylum-seekers in 2016-2017 and to resettle 2,750 refugees, mainly from Syria.

Unaccompanied children continued to be routinely detained at the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport's "waiting zone".

DISCRIMINATION

According to NGOs, almost 4,000 Roma living in 37 informal settlements were forcibly evicted in the first half of the year. Migrants and asylum-seekers were also forcibly evicted from informal settlements throughout the year. In June and July, hundreds of them were repeatedly evicted from several locations in Paris.

In March, the European Court of Human Rights communicated to the government three cases regarding transgender individuals who were denied legal recognition of their female gender because they had refused to comply with medical criteria.

On 17 April, the government adopted an action plan to combat racism and anti-Semitism. Among other measures, it recommended the adoption of an amendment to the Criminal Code to ensure that perpetrating a crime with a racist or anti-Semitic motive constituted an aggravating circumstance.

In August, the UN Human Rights Committee recommended the revision of the 2004 law prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols in schools and of the 2011 law banning face covering. The Committee stated that the laws constituted a violation of the right to freedom of religion and that they had a disproportionate impact on women and girls, as well as on specific religious groups. In November, the European Court of Human Rights found that the refusal of a state employer to extend the contract of a social worker who was wearing the headscarf did not violate her rights to freedoms of expression and religion.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

On 20 October, the Court of Cassation confirmed the conviction of 14 individuals for incitement to racial discrimination on the basis of the 1881 law on freedom of the press. In 2009 and 2010, they had participated in non-violent initiatives in a supermarket calling for the boycott of Israeli products.

CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY

In November, the Senate rejected a bill aimed at establishing a framework to ensure the respect of human rights by multinational companies, including their subsidiaries, sub-contractors and suppliers. The bill had been approved in March by the National Assembly.