In France, people are systematically discriminated against by the police because of their skin color and origin – at least that’s what Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and four other organizations accuse the security forces of. Today they threatened the French state with a class action lawsuit if it doesn’t respond to the allegations within four months.
In France, „discriminatory identity checks“ are part of everyday life, according to the declaration of the non-governmental organizations. They are calling for an amendment to the penal code to ban this ethnic profiling and to create a complaint body for those affected.
Round table on police violence too
Several cases of serious police violence had recently become known in France. There was outrage above all about three police officers who beat up a black music producer in his Paris studio in November. Criminal investigations are ongoing against the officers.
On Monday, on the initiative of President Emmanuel Macron, the government opened a round table with police unions and representatives of civil society. The four-month talks should also deal with the subject of police violence.
Macron had also admitted problems with the police in December: „If you have a skin color that is not white today, you are checked much more often,“ said Macron in an interview. „You are treated as a problem factor, and that is unbearable.“
