France must “collect and publish complete data broken down by race or origin,” according to a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. But this practice would be contrary to the French Constitution.
Is the French Constitution obsolete according to the UN? The text which founded the Fifth Republic established that “France is an indivisible Republic [and that it] ensures equality before the law of all citizens, without distinction of origin, race or religion” but the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations in a report of June 28, called for the establishment of ethnic statistics to fight against “systemic racism”.
A lack of data according to ethnicity in this regard is “worrying” said Michelle Bachelet, a physician who has studied military strategy, referring for example to the United Kingdom where over a year (from April 2019 to March 2020), it noted six arrests with searches for 1000 white people versus 54 per 1000 black people.
The report therefore stated that it was necessary to analyze “the cumulative effects of laws, policies and practices on certain racial and ethnic groups in particular”. The High Commission also examined 190 cases of deaths of Africans or people of African descent in contact with the police.
It delved into the details of seven “representative cases”, including that of French criminal Adama Traoré. “With the exception of the case of George Floyd, no one was held responsible for these murders, and the families are still waiting for truth and justice,” noted Mona Rishmawi, head of the Rule of Law Service at the High Commission, which deplored the “slowness of justice” in the Traoré case.
The fight against racism requires selective memory, underlined the report, because it was “high time to face the consequences of slavery, of the transatlantic slave trade of Africans and colonialism, and to aim at restorative justice”.
“I call on all states to stop denying racism and start dismantling it, end impunity and build trust, listen to the voices of people of African descent, face the legacy of the past and offer reparations,” concluded Bachelet, for whom “the status quo is unacceptable”.