We had to go to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The European jurisdiction condemned France this Thursday for discriminatory identity control. The applicant who won the case is Karim Touil. In 2011, he underwent three identity checks, in the space of ten days. The Court concludes that it exists in its case “a presumption of discriminatory treatment towards it and that the government has failed to refute it”. In her judgment, she adds that it was not brought “objective and reasonable justification” to the choice of targeting this individual, while saying herself “well aware of the difficulties for police officers to decide, very quickly and without necessarily having clear internal instructions, if they are confronted with a threat to public order or security”. The State is ordered to pay 3,000 euros to Karim Touil. Five other applicants, however, did not win the case.
They are part of a group of 13 men who had launched in a legal fight, denouncing unjustified controls, sometimes associated with palpations, insults or tu. After losing at first instance, the complainants had appealed and the Paris court of appeal had agreed to five of them. In 2016, the Court of Cassation had definitively condemned the State in three files, a historic first. The six men who had not won the case then brought the case before the ECHR.
“We cannot have in France people who grow up by being afraid of the police simply because they have certain origins”
With this new decision, “there, it is starting to do a lot,” reacts the Senator PS of Seine-Saint-Denis, Corinne Narassiguin. “What is the next step, the UN?” What is it for France to take charge of the subject? Asks the socialist senator, author of a bill aimed at combating facies controls, rejected by the Senate last May. “When you know that the senatorial majority says that all of this is the order of the feeling and that discrimination is difficult to assess …” points Corinne Narassiguin, “all that cannot continue as it stands”.
“It is a subject of republican police, which must be impeccable on issues of discrimination. We cannot have in France people who grow up by being afraid of the police simply because they have certain origins and that they will be assimilated to a stranger, “says Senator of Seine-Saint-Denis.
“When Bruno Retailleau gives the order to 4,000 police forces to go and stop undocumented people, we know very well what it means, it is facies control”
She adds that on the police side, the subject also questions. “More and more police and gendarmes are wondering what all these identity checks are for. We have already had a study of the defender of rights, where nearly 40 % of the police officers questioned were asking questions, “said PS senator, who also evokes” the ex-director of the IGPN, who has already said that there is a problem on identity checks “.
And according to Corinne Narassiguin, it does not work out with current politics, on the contrary. “The Minister of the Interior launched a large operation with 4,000 police forces to whom we have given the hunt for undocumented migrants in stations, etc., authorizing to do facies control, in reality”, denounces the socialist, “because when Bruno Retailleau gives order to 4,000 police forces to go and stop undressed, we know very well what it means. It is going to control all the people who seem foreign, most of which are those of North African and Maghreb origin. On June 18-19, there was a targeting that was made. This is facies control ”.
The solution of receipts and the showers
To try to reverse the trend, Corinne Narassiguin offers in her bill a measure repeatedly put on the table: the receipt, “so that the controlled person can have proof that he has been checked. If you have to justify it each time, it could avoid really superfluous control ”. Enough to allow you to also have specific data on the number of controls, which do not exist.
Other measures: “The systematic trigger of the pip cameras for any identity check, which would allow you to have irrefutable evidence if it ever goes bad. It also protects the policeman. In the municipal police of Aubervilliers, they all have a camera. At first, there was a little reluctance, now they realized that it was protection for them. ” Or the idea of ”limiting administrative controls, that is to say random checks” for cases of “prevention to serious disorders to public order, during demonstrations”, and “supervise the prosecutor’s requisitions” to carry out checks, “because we know that the police are doing friendly, even pre-arranged”. So “if the policeman asks, it must be official. Everyone must be empowered ”.
“Black or Arab people are four times more controlled than the others and have twelve times more likely to be palpated, humiliated”
In view of the figures, it is urgent to act. “Black or Arab people are four times more controlled than the others and have twelve times more likely to be palpated, humiliated in one way or another. We are tutoring them, we ask them to take out all their belongings, ”notes Corinne Narassiguin. Result: “There is an extremely negative interaction. And no one has shown that that’s how we are doing prevention against delinquency. “
