2023-07-08 16:51:41
Since the protests against the pension reform and recently the riots following the death of Nahel killed by a policeman, France and its police have repeatedly been criticized for “excessive use of force”. Paris insisted on contesting their merits each time, notably judging on Saturday the remarks of the UN “excessive”.
UN denounces use of disproportionate force
On Friday, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Cerd) urgently adopted a statement pointing out “the excessive use of force by law enforcement” in France and asked the French government to pass legislation that “prohibits racial profiling”.
On May 1, the UN already called on Paris to “take measures to guarantee impartial investigations by bodies outside the police in all cases of racist incidents involving police officers”.
Its rapporteur on environmental defenders had also judged, on March 30, “the response” of the police to demonstrators opposed to the controversial water reservoir project (“mega-basin”) of Sainte-Soline. (Deux-Sèvres) “largely disproportionate”.
Already in 2019, regarding the Yellow Vests social movement, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, had asked Paris for “an investigation” into “reported cases of excessive use of strength “.
The Council of Europe agrees with the UN
On March 24, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, was alarmed by the “excessive use of force” by the security forces against demonstrators opposed to the reform of the pensions of Elisabeth Borne and the use of article 49 paragraph 3 of the Constitution.
“Failure to declare a demonstration is not sufficient in itself to justify an infringement of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly of the demonstrators, nor a criminal sanction imposed on the participants in such a demonstration”, underlines Dunja Mijatovic while the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had just affirmed that participation in an “undeclared demonstration” constituted a “crime”.
Amnesty asks the authorities to “ensure the safety of the demonstrators”
On March 23, 2023, the NGO Amnesty International France “alerts on the excessive use of force and abusive arrests” and calls on the authorities to “ensure the safety of the demonstrators”.
She recalls that a demonstrator who “presented no danger” had to have his testicle amputated after being hit in the crotch with a truncheon on January 19, and deplores the excessive use of grenades.
Other voices in France
In France, on March 21, the Defender of Rights Claire Hédon said she was “worried” about the “preventive” arrests during the mobilizations, and “concerned by the videos circulating on social networks” and “referrals received by the institution on many possible breaches of ethics in the maintenance of order”. It announces that it has automatically taken up the case of the two demonstrators seriously injured on the 25th during the violent clashes in Sainte-Soline.
In a letter dated April 17 to Gérald Darmanin, the comptroller general of places of deprivation of liberty Dominique Simonnot denounces “serious violations of fundamental rights” of people arrested in Paris in demonstrations against pension reform. “Some agents”, she writes, had been “instructed” to arrest “without distinction”.
The League for Human Rights (LDH) also deplores “an immoderate and indiscriminate use of force” in Sainte-Soline, with “cases of obstacles by the police to the intervention of relief” near injured people. The LDH incriminates LBD shots “from quads”, a practice prohibited and denied by Gérald Darmanin who then backtracks, photos proving him wrong.
Finally, according to RSF, journalists covering rallies against the pension reform “are the subject of numerous arbitrary arrests, attacks and intimidation by the police”.
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