“The French authorities have imposed excessive and illegitimate restrictions on the right to demonstrate,” accuses Amnesty International

The NGO points out in particular the arrests, bans on demonstrations, and the use of force during the mobilization against pensions, the mega-basins project in Sainte-Soline or even the war in Gaza.

In its annual report published this Wednesday April 24, the NGO Amnesty International accuses the French authorities of having “repeatedly imposed excessive, disproportionate and illegitimate restrictions on the right to demonstrate”.

The NGO discusses the arrests “a large number of demonstrators” over the past year. She recalls that some “seen security equipment, banners, speakers, pots and other utensils confiscated in a completely arbitrary manner”. Amnesty criticizes the bans on demonstrations taken by certain local authorities “invoking risks of disturbance to public order” during the mobilization against pension reform, but also since the Hamas attack on Israel.

“In October, the Minister of the Interior sent a message to the prefects asking them to ban any demonstration organized in solidarity with Palestine, which constituted a disproportionate and discriminatory attack on the right to peaceful assembly”, castigates the organization. Amnesty denounces the use of “strength, in particular [du] blind bludgeoning” For “disperse demonstrations” against the mega-basins project in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) or against pension reform.

“Institutional and systemic” racism

Amnesty International says it observed last year “numerous acts of vandalism and violence of a racist, xenophobic or anti-LGBTI nature”. She particularly deplores acts of vandalism “against reception centers” LGBT+, against “mosques, synagogues and cemeteries”or even the tags “Nazis or anti-Semites” which have been registered on several school buildings in recent months. The NGO considers that “Cases have multiplied following the surge in violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip”.

She also deplores a “systemic racism” and an “religious discrimination” persistent in France, “particularly with regard to Muslim women and girls”. The NGO cites in particular the ban, at the start of the 2023 school year, on the wearing of the abaya and qamis in public schools. The organization regrets that in one week “dozens of young Muslim girls were refused access to their school, in violation of their rights to education and non-discrimination”.

Amnesty International denounces more generally a “institutional and systemic racism” which can shine through “identity checks that discriminate against black or Arab men and young people”. The organization considers that “the National Plan to combat racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination linked to origin”presented in January by the government, did not respond to this problem, “nor even recognized its existence”.