STRASBOURG: A top European court on Thursday condemned France for failing to protect the rights of a Frenchman who had accused his country’s police of racial profiling.
The European Court of Human Rights was unable to determine discrimination in the case of five other French plaintiffs.
But it found that the government had provided no “objective and reasonable justification” for police stopping Karim Touil three times in 10 days in the eastern city of Besancon in 2011.
The court said it was “very aware of the difficulties for police officers to decide, very quickly and without necessarily having clear internal instructions, whether they are facing a threat to public order or security”.
But in the case of Touil, it presumed “discriminatory treatment” that the French government was not able to refute.
It ordered the French state to pay him 3,000 euros ($3,500).
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International last year said racial profiling was “widespread throughout the country and deeply rooted in police practices”.
HRW said young men and boys perceived as black or Arab, some as young as 10, were often subjected to “abusive and illegal identity checks”.
The rights groups said they had lodged a complaint with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
France’s rights ombudsman in 2017 found that a young person “perceived as black or Arab” was 20 times more likely to face an identity check than the rest of the population.
