U.S. Department of State, Human Rights Reports for 1999 Page 1 of 19 The State Department web site below is a permanent electro information released prior to January 20, 2001. Please see w material released since President George W. Bush took offic This site is not updated so external links may no longer func us with any questions about finding information. NOTE: External links to other Internet sites should not be co endorsement of the views contained therein. 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor U.S. Department of State, February 25, 2000 FRANCE France is a constitutional democracy with a directly elected president and National Assembly and an independent judiciary. The law enforcement and internal security apparatus consists of the Gendarmerie, the national police, and municipal police forces in major cities, all of which are under effective civilian control. Members of those police forces committed some human rights abuses. The highly developed, diversified, and primarily market-based economy provides residents with a high standard of living. The Government generally respected the human rights of its citizens, and the law and judiciary provide a means of dealing with individual instances of abuse. There were instances of unwarranted use of lethal force and the abuse of detainees, particularly foreigners, by law enforcement officers. Long delays in bringing cases to trial and lengthy pretrial detention are problems. Violence and threats against ethnic and religious minorities continued to decline. The Government has taken important steps to deal with violence against women and children. Women continue to face wage discrimination. RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From: a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing There were no reports of political killings by government officials. Law enforcement officers have used excessive force--particularly directed against http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1999_hrp_report/france.html 1/2/03 U.S. Department of State, Human Rights Reports for 1999 Page 2 of 19 immigrants--resulting in deaths, although there is no evidence of a pattern of such abuses. In January a judge initiated an investigation into the November 20, 1998 death of 26-year- old Mohammed Ali Saoud in Toulon. Saoud, who had a history of mental illness, died following police intervention in a violent domestic disturbance. After a struggle, the police succeeded in physically restraining him. Saoud lost consciousness and the police called a medic, but the medic could not revive him. An autopsy determined that Saoud died from a fractured skull. The police had fired rubber bullets at Saoud to subdue him, and Saoud's mother said that the police kicked and hit him while he was on the ground. The judicial investigation was opened in response to requests by Saoud's family and the Human Rights League, a French nongovernmental organization (NGO). The investigation continued at year's end. An investigating judge is considering manslaughter charges against the police officer who shot and killed 17-year-old Habib Mohamed while he attempted to steal a car on December 13, 1998 in Toulouse. After being shot, Mohamed allegedly staggered away and later was found dead by a passerby. The police officers involved reportedly failed to follow Mohamed or to follow required procedures to report that their weapons were fired. In August the judge investigating the December 1997 fatal shooting of 16-year-old Abdel- Kader Bouziane changed her investigation of one of the police officers involved from manslaughter to murder. A second police officer remains under investigation for manslaughter. The police claimed self-defense when they fired at Bouziane's car as it approached them head-on, shooting him when he attempted to break through a roadblock near Fontainbleau. Ballistics experts stated that the shots were fired after Bouziane's vehicle passed through the roadblock. On December 10, the Court of Assizes in the department of Rhone convicted the police officer who fired the fatal shot in the December 1997 shooting in Lyon of Fabrice Fernandez of manslaughter, and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. In March the chambre d'accusation (the prosecuting chamber of the criminal court) had confirmed an investigative judge's 1998 decision to increase the charge to murder. The officer had been removed from the police force in January 1998. In October 1997, the public prosecutor declined to bring charges against the gendarmes who killed two homeless men who were robbing a store in Machecoul (Loire-Atlantique). The public prosecutor decided that the gendarmes had not used excessive force and an investigating judge agreed. In December 1997, the appeals court in Aix-en-Provence overturned the decision that the border police officer who shot and killed 8-year-old Serbian refugee Todor Bogdanovic in 1995 acted in self-defense. Border police were accused of using excessive force in attempting to halt a convoy of refugees that ran a border checkpoint. The case was passed on to the Court of Assizes on a charge of manslaughter, and the officer was acquitted in December 1998. In November 1997, the gendarme who shot and killed Franck Moret was released by the correctional court in Valence, prompting the family of the deceased to appeal the judgment. In July 1998, the appeals court overturned the decision of the correctional court and sentenced the officer to an 18-month suspended prison term. The officer has appealed http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1999_hrp_report/france.html 1/2/03 U.S. Department of State, Human Rights Reports for 1999 Page 3 of 19 the court's decision. On September 23, 1998, the Court of Cassation refused the appeal of a ruling that no grounds for prosecution existed, by the family of Ibrahim Sy, a Senegalese youth who was shot and killed by a gendarme in 1994. An administrative inquiry was opened into the 1991 death of 18-year-old Aissa Ihich, who allegedly was beaten by police officers and subsequently died of an asthmatic attack because he allegedly was refused medication. In June the chambre d'accusation decided that three police officers and one doctor involved in the case should be tried before a correctional court. In May the Court of Cassation sent a new report to the Prime Minister, which described the Government's involvement in the case of the Algerians who were beaten, shot, and thrown into the Seine river during a 1961 protest in Paris. The report, based on a detailed review of the judiciary archives, concluded that 48 Algerians died on the night of October 17, 1961. In May 1998, the Interior Ministry had concluded that it was likely that "dozens" of persons had died; government authorities at the time of the incident had stated that only three persons were killed. In May Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's office announced that government archives on the incident would be opened to historians; at year's end, both the national archives and the archives of the city of Paris were open to the public. In May the authorities arrested Corsican nationalists Didier Maranelli, Alain Ferrandi, Pierre Alessandri, and Marcel Istria for the February 1998 killing of Corsican Prefet Claude Erignac. According to press reports, only Istria has denied any participation in the killing. Yvan Colonna, who is presumed to have fired the shots that killed Erignac, was still at large at year's end, and was believed to be hiding somewhere on the island. The investigation continued at year's end. On September 15, a court convicted 21 persons and sentenced them to between 6 months and 10 years in prison; the defendants were members of a network that provided logistical support in Paris, Lyon, and Lille for a group which in 1998 a court found to be responsible for a 1995 wave of bombings in Paris that killed 8 persons and injured over 170 others. There were no developments in the case of two Iranian nationals suspected of killing Reza Mazoulman, an Iranian deputy education minister under the Shah, in Paris in 1996. The investigation continued at year's end. On March 10, a special Court of Assizes issued guilty verdicts and imposed life sentences on six Libyan nationals (including the brother-in-law of Libyan dictator Mu'ammar al- Qadhafi), who were tried in absentia for the 1989 bombing of UTA flight 772. According to press reports in July, Libya paid approximately $33 million (211 million francs) to France to compensate the families of the 170 persons killed. On May 20, German national Hans-Joachim Klein, who was arrested in September 1998 for murder and attempted murder in a 1975 hostage taking at OPEC headquarters in Vienna, was extradited to Germany. In June a court rejected the appeal by Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a.k.a. "Carlos the Jackal," of a December 1997 conviction in which he had received a life sentence for a 1975 murder in Paris of two French secret agents and their informer. On January 15, the chambre http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1999_hrp_report/france.html 1/2/03 U.S. Department of State, Human Rights Reports for 1999 Page 4 of 19 d'accusation of the Paris Court of Appeal decided not to prosecute him for a 1974 bombing of a Paris drugstore which killed 2 persons and wounded 34 others. However, in mid-December the Court of Cassation set aside the Court of Appeal's decision and reopened the case. On May 19, a Paris court acquitted Bob Denard, a 70-year-old soldier of fortune, and Dominique Malacrino of charges that they killed President Ahmed Abdallah of the Comoros in 1989.