France
The government failed to enact in-depth reforms to address abusive police identity checks, including ethnic profiling. A new code of police ethics entered into force in January requiring the use of the polite form of address but with minimal guidance on the use of pat-downs.
Evictions of Roma living in informal settlements continued, with rights groups reporting that 10,355 people had been evicted between January and September 2014, most of whom did not have adequate alternative housing. In September, the CoE human rights commissioner called on France to end such forced evictions. An internal police instruction to police to systematically evict Roma living in the streets of Paris’ 6th arrondissement was leaked to the press in April. The government subsequently announced that it had been rectified.
In June, a 16-year-old Roma boy was badly beaten and left unconscious in a shopping cart in a Paris suburb. A criminal investigation into attempted homicide, abduction, and detention by an organized group was ongoing at time of writing, but no arrests had been made.
Hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers were evicted from makeshift camps around Calais area in May and July. In most cases, authorities did not provide adequate alternative accommodation.
Parliament passed a new gender equality law in July with measures to encourage paternity leave, protect victims of domestic violence, and ensure equal pay between men and women. The new law also removes a requirement that women who seek an abortion are “in distress.”
In July, the government banned several pro-Palestinian demonstrations and a pro-Israeli demonstration on public order grounds, in breach of the rights to freedom of expression and assembly. In July, a kosher restaurant in Paris was attacked. In nearby Sarcelles, a kosher store and a Jewish-owned chemist were burned, amid riots that erupted after a pro-Palestinian demonstration was banned. A dozen people had been convicted or were under investigation for the violence in Sarcelles at time of writing, including a man sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in October for burning the kosher store, looting, and attacking police officers. Also in July, police arrested a man for an attempted arson attack against a Jewish cultural center in Toulouse.
In July, the government proposed a new asylum bill to increase accommodation for asylum-seekers, give suspensive effect to all appeals against negative asylum decisions, and speed-up the asylum process. It also proposed a new immigration bill allowing French authorities to ban citizens from other EU countries from traveling inside France for up to three years if they are deemed a threat to a “fundamental interest of society” or “abuse the law”—a move that appears to target Roma. Both bills were before parliament at time of writing.
In November, parliament approved a counterterrorism law prohibiting people from going abroad if it is suspected they would participate in terrorist activities, or would pose a threat to public safety on return; creates a criminal offense of “individual terrorist enterprise;” and allows the authorities to require Internet service providers to block websites that incite or promote terrorism.
In October, a man died during a demonstration against the construction of a dam in the Tarn area. His death appeared to have been caused by a stun grenade fired by gendarmes. An investigation was underway at time of writing.
In its annual report published in April, the National Consultative Human Rights Commission found widespread and increasing prejudice against Roma, and, for the third year in a row, an increase in attacks and threats against Muslims.
A December 2013 law allowing for far-reaching government surveillance of communications in breach of the right to privacy prompted little public debate.
fonte = à de cima
