Professional Documents
Culture Documents
France
France
Head of state
Franois Hollande (replaced Nicolas Sarkozy in May)
Head of government
Jean-Marc Ayrault (replaced Franois Fillon in May)
Investigations into allegations of deaths in custody, torture and other ill-treatment by police remained
ineffective and inadequate. Thousands of Roma were left homeless after being forcibly evicted from informal
settlements. The fast-track procedure for the assessment of asylum applications continued to fall short of
international standards.
Deaths in custody
Concerns about the promptness, effectiveness and independence of investigations into cases of deaths in police
custody remained. Investigations into four long-standing cases of death in custody were closed.
On 26 September, the examining magistrate concluded in the case of Abou Bakari Tandia that there was no
evidence to hold a police officer responsible in the process leading to the death of the victim. Abou Bakari
Tandia fell into a coma during the night of 5 to 6 December 2004, when he was being held in the police
station of Courbevoie, and died on 24 January 2005. The police officer who performed the restraint
technique believed to have put Abou Bakari Tandia into the coma was still in post at another police station at
Also on 15 October, the case of Mahamadou Marga, an irregular migrant from Mali who died on 30
November 2010 after being shot twice by an electro-stun device during his violent arrest in Colombes, was
closed by the examining magistrate . On 4 May, the Defender of Rights demanded disciplinary proceedings
against the law enforcement officials involved, who he considered to have made disproportionate use of
their stun devices. An appeal hearing was pending.
In December, the case of Mohamed Boukrourou, who died in a police van on 12 November 2009, was
dismissed. An appeal of that decision remained pending. At the end of the year, the four police officers
involved in his arrest in Valentigney were reportedly still in office and had not faced disciplinary proceedings.
the offence committed. The three policemen appealed the decision. Four others implicated in the incident
were acquitted.
Little progress was made in the investigation of Lamine Diengs death during his arrest on 17 June 2007 in
Paris. Lamine Dieng had been restrained by police officers on the street and then in a police vehicle, where
he lost consciousness and died of mechanical asphyxia.
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Discrimination
Ethnic and religious minorities, as well as LGBTI people, continued to experience discrimination.
In December, the Minister of the Interior presented a new draft code of ethics for security forces which, for the first
time, regulated identity checks and body searches. In September, he had opposed the idea of officially registering all
identity checks in order to combat racial profiling. Several human rights organizations continued to document identity
checks based on ethnic profiling.
A law aimed at prohibiting the concealment of the face remained in force. Such laws indirectly discriminate against
Muslim women freely choosing to wear full face veils. In January the Senate adopted a bill aimed at prohibiting
employees in private childcare facilities from wearing religious and cultural symbols and dress. A circular issued by
the former Ministry of Education in 2011 remained in force, which already banned women wearing such forms of
dress from taking part in school outings.
In August, a law on sexual harassment introduced sexual identity as a prohibited ground in anti-hate crime law and
in legislation aimed at combating discrimination in the workplace.
On 5 October, the Constitutional Council revoked several provisions of a 1969 law on Travellers. It removed the
requirement to be registered in a municipality for three years to be able to vote and to carry and periodically renew a
circulation notebook for Travellers without a regular income. However, those with a regular income were still obliged
to carry a new circulation booklet; all Travellers still had to register with municipal authorities; and they were not
allowed to constitute more than 3% of the towns population.
On 7 November, the Council of Ministers adopted a bill on same-sex marriage, which was due to be examined by the
National Assembly from January 2013.
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Forced evictions
Camps and makeshift homes inhabited by Roma continued to be dismantled in forced evictions throughout the year.
According to NGO estimates, 9,040 Roma were forcibly evicted throughout France in the first three quarters of 2012.
On 26 August, the government issued an inter-ministerial circular containing discretionary guidelines for Prefects on
how to plan and carry out evictions and support the people targeted by them. However, international safeguards
against forced evictions continued to be flouted at a local level when implementing expulsion orders.
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