More than 70 customers, mostly Russian or with Slavic names, have filed a complaint in Paris for discrimination, denouncing the blockings qualified as abusive of their accounts by certain French banks since the start of the war in Ukraine in February, indicated Thursday their lawyers.
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The 76 signatories of the complaint against X filed on Monday, consulted by AFP and revealed by Le Figaro, are mainly Russian nationals living in France or French people of Russian origin or with Slavic-sounding names, clients in large banking establishments French or online banks.
“The banking restrictions taken against them” are “the simple result of their true (or sometimes only supposed) belonging to the Russian nation”, can we read in the complaint which specifies that they are “not part of the list “black” Russian personalities or those close to Vladimir Putin who fall under the sanctions” of the European Union, such as the freezing of assets.
The plaintiffs, from very diverse professions (student, librarian, entrepreneur, psychologist, etc.) have “faced a certain number of problems with French banking establishments” since “the beginning of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine”, such as refusing a loan, blocking, refusing to open or closing their accounts.
These measures “were applied “blindly”, arbitrarily, almost automatically, without prior information (…) and this, even before having requested and checked the elements likely to be verified from the customers concerned , namely their identity documents and their residence permits”, underlines the complaint.
Questioned by their customers on these difficulties, banks were able to answer: “Due to the current political circumstances your account is temporarily blocked”; “these are banking regulations in the face of current political issues”; “the blocking is due to your nationality in the current context”.
These customers have suffered “the zeal of the compliance services (compliance, editor’s note) of the banks”, lament their lawyers, Me Marie-Laure Cartier and Alexandre Meyniel, who point to anxiety and financial damage.
“The banks know that they are illegal, that these customers are outside the scope of the sanctions regimes and yet they continue,” they add. “Some restrictions were fixed, but it took a long time, and sometimes they reappeared”.