France - June 2023

A police officer fatally shot a 17-year-old boy at a traffic stop in Nanterre, near Paris. The police officer has been preliminarily charged with voluntary homicide and the circumstances of the shooting, captured on video by a bystander, are under investigation. France’s human rights ombudsman has opened an inquiry into the teenager’s death. The killing sparked protests and riots across France, leading to the temporary imposition of curfews in some Paris suburbs, and suspension of night-time public transport services in the Paris region. The shooting revived debates about police brutality, as investigations proceed regarding the proportionality of the police officer’s use of his weapon in view of 2017 reforms permitting the use of firearms for the purposes of self-defence or for the protection of life or physical integrity of others. The incident also fed concerns about racial profiling as well as discrimination against French citizens with immigrant backgrounds.

Sources: France24, Financial Times,  Le Monde (1), Le Monde (2), The New York Times, Légifrance

The French government issued a decree banning the environmental activist group Les Soulèvements de la Terre (“Earth Uprisings”), on the grounds that the group provokes violence. A representative from Human Rights Watch warned that dissolving an independent organisation undermines lawful activism with implications for the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and other NGOs and environmental activists have said that the move is disproportionate. The group, founded in 2021, uses tactics such as blockades and occupying land to disrupt large energy and agriculture infrastructure projects. The group was involved in violent clashes with police at a demonstration against the construction of a reservoir in Sainte-Soline in March 2023, prompting the Interior Ministry to launch the dissolution procedures. In June, UN experts criticised French authorities for excessive force against protesters resisting the mega-basin project.

Sources: Euronews, OHCHR, Human Rights Watch, Le Monde (1), Le Monde (2), The Guardian