French police fine black and Arab men ‘for being undesirable'

Telegraph

22-04-2025

French police are fining young black and Arab men and chasing them out of public spaces for being 'undesirable', a report has found.
Défenseurs des Droits, an independent citizens' rights organisation, criticised Paris police for engaging in what it said was systemic racial profiling to expel 'undesirable' people from city streets.
The 37-page document describes an 'institutional policy' designed to discriminate on the basis of age, gender, ethnic, racial and economic status. Groups of young racialised men are 'evicted' or dispersed 'without observing any criminal or antisocial behaviour', authors say.
The study looked at 1,200 fines and interviewed 44 young people.
While the word 'undesirables' doesn't exist in the Code of Criminal Procedures, it is one of the most often-used options for categorising and filing reports in police software.
Human rights groups have condemned French police for alleged ethnic profiling before. But the newest report also looks at how the practice of issuing repeated tickets and fines, which became widespread in Paris in the mid 2010s, can plunge young men into crippling debt as high as €32,000 (£27,500) even before their 20s.
During the pandemic lockdown, for example, respondents interviewed for the study were stopped and fined 140 times more than the rest of the population.
'Although barely adults or still minors, these young men accumulate numerous fines and find themselves owing the state debts sometimes amounting to several thousand or even, in some cases, tens of thousands of euros,' the report stated.
One young man, Amadou, received his first fine at the age of 14 and had since averaged 15 fines a year. At 19 he had accumulated 102 fines and a debt load of almost €32,000.
Even before they enter the workforce, these young men are set up for failure and poverty in a cycle that predominantly hurts those from immigrant and working class families, the authors wrote.
'Repeated fines have significant long-term economic impacts for populations already in precarious situations, who are often unable to pay the amounts demanded,' they said.
Abdul, 26, was diagnosed with a serious illness in 2020 and did not work for two years. When he returned to the workforce in 2022, the government automatically deducted €700, or half his salary, to pay down his debt of about €8,000.
He has since gone back on benefits. 'If I kill myself so they take €700 from me every month, I might as well stay on welfare,' he said.
Lamine, 24, was born in France to Malian parents who are both maintenance workers. He is now a binman and his salary is deducted every month to pay off his fines.
For the study authors compiled the fines of 19 respondents who averaged 38 between them and owed debts from €2,000 to €32,500. The average age of the men was 20.
Collectively, this sample group owed €220,000 (£188,700). The fines included minor offences such as spitting, littering or 'noise pollution'.
'Combined, the amounts of these debts are disproportionate to the minor nature of the offences these fines punish,' the authors wrote.
Police dispersal of youths also reinforces the idea that the young men, most of whom are born in France to immigrant parents, are 'out of place' in their own neighbourhoods, legitimising calls for the exclusion of marginalised populations, the authors claim.
Dispersals without disturbances
Police officers interviewed for the study acknowledged that some dispersals were carried out without disturbances being reported.
The report also denounced locals who call the police on the youths, and use pejorative words such as 'harmful', 'gangs' and 'scum'.
They also used racialised language such as 'young North African men' to describe them, again reinforcing the idea of 'undesirables' hanging about the neighbourhood.
'We ask them to leave because we know we'll be called by the residents. It's preventive,' one officer said.
Laurent Nuñez, the Paris police chief, denounced the report as defamatory and cast doubt on the researchers' methodology, which he called 'more than questionable'.
Expressing his 'frank indignation' at the report, he said: 'More than their blind questioning and recurring discrediting, these police officers ... need to be supported.'