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00:00 here in the studio is human rights attorney William Jullier. Thanks for joining us.
00:04 Good evening.
00:05 Lots to unpack there. I'll begin with the last point, which is this call for an end
00:12 to stop and search, or what some in the US call stop and frisk, which is common practice
00:19 among the French police.
00:20 Yeah, it is. I mean, legally speaking, I think that refers to the contrôle de police administrative.
00:28 Because in France, you don't need probable cause to...
00:32 You do. In France, there are several legal frameworks applicable. One is for the contrôle
00:37 de police judiciaire. That roughly means that when there's a crime scene or suspicion of
00:43 a crime having been committed, then the police can check people around there. Then there's
00:49 contrôle ordered by the procureur de la republic, which are also judicial police,
00:55 which target special areas in a special timeframe and special offenses. For example, le garde
01:03 du Nord, a suspicion of drug trafficking, and then during 24 hours, the police can carry
01:08 out random checks there.
01:11 And those random checks include asking for ID papers.
01:15 Absolutely. Within a time limit and a location and a connection with specific offenses being
01:23 usually committed there.
01:24 Because with a lot of our neighbors, you don't need ID papers. You can walk around
01:28 with just your keys in your pocket.
01:29 So definitely. These are the possibly more random checks, but they are with limits from
01:40 a judge or at least a prosecutor. And then you have these other random, more random checks.
01:47 And I think these are the ones which are the most criticized, are the ones to do with police
01:51 administrative. And these have to do with the only risk which is sufficient of trouble
01:59 Ã l'ordre public.
02:01 Meaning that if the police considers that there's no offense being committed, that they
02:08 don't intervene in the scope of this special requisition of the prosecution service, then
02:15 they can just check someone if they consider that there's a risk of this threat to the
02:20 public order.
02:21 So that obviously is a more wide.
02:24 Are you arguing that they should have warrants to be able to do it? What are you suggesting?
02:29 What framework would you want, William Jullien?
02:33 I don't think it's for me to say what needs to be done. I think the judges will do that.
02:38 But clearly, I think that the framework which poses the more questions and that puts the
02:45 population and some in the population, not all, we will get to that, I imagine, in a
02:53 second. But the framework that I think is the most risky one is this one of contrôle
03:00 de police administrative. And I imagine that this is maybe the framework that needs to
03:05 be at least amended.
03:07 How do you amend it? What are you suggesting? Do you think, first of all, there is systemic
03:11 racial profiling in the police?
03:14 It is a huge problem in France. I tried to check the numbers. It's not only in France.
03:19 I was checking for the UK. I think the ratios are kind of the same. And the numbers go from
03:25 kind of three times more risk of being checked your ID if you are from black or northern
03:31 African origin in France up to 10 or 12. And I think in England for black population is
03:38 kind of nine.
03:39 So there is a massive and huge issue. And I think that everybody, except for people
03:45 who are not going to say things as they are, knows it. And it was actually said by President
03:49 Macron himself, who made a declaration on that. So there is a major problem. Then the
03:55 question is, how do you tackle that? And some requests of the associations who filed in
04:02 this special recourse before the coup, they made some suggestions.
04:06 Let's talk about that.
04:07 Yeah, the suggestions.
04:08 They put a they put down their suggestions in January of 2021. And they say that they
04:14 took their case to the highest administrative court because they never got an answer. Why?
04:20 Yeah. So there have been precedents with sentences and the government has been considered liable
04:27 and responsible for non-legitimate ID check, checking by the police.
04:36 So why didn't the government respond to their suggestions? Their calls for structural reform?
04:41 I don't know. I mean, I think this is about politics as much as it is about law. I think
04:48 there are ways to improve things. And I think that this decision might be instrumental.
04:56 Is it possible to sit down and find common ground when you have a government who's got
05:03 a very law and order interior minister and they're scared of people voting for the far
05:09 right?
05:10 That is what I was referring to, saying that it might be as as political as a legal problem.
05:17 And I imagine maybe no one from the government decided to move on to this issue because of
05:23 what you just mentioned, which is that there's that it's a it's a hugely sensitive matter
05:28 in terms of elections to come. And I think nobody wanted to go there. So maybe now they
05:34 are going to have to go there. But it must be recalled that there's been a decision from
05:39 the Conseil Constitutionnel not so long ago in 2016 when the legal provisions enabling
05:51 these police ID checks were challenged as being contrary to the constitution. And the
05:56 Conseil Constitutionnel said, no, they are. They are. They they are not contrary to the
06:02 constitution, but suggested guidelines and said that they were constitutional, but that
06:11 it needed to be within a framework. Exactly. Within a framework that was determined by
06:16 the Conseil Constitutionnel.
06:17 So is it possible to find is it possible to find a common ground?
06:21 I think so.
06:22 I think.
06:23 Where is that common ground?
06:24 I think it will come from this decision because the difference between what happened before
06:29 the Conseil Constitutionnel and what did not happen politically might happen now because
06:35 this application will enable the Conseil d'Etat to instruct, to give not recommendations,
06:44 but to tell the government, the state that things need to be done. And that is that is
06:52 that is an order. It's a judicial order to do something and to find remedies. And the
07:01 judges, the Conseil d'Etat will be able to say what they want the government to do. And
07:07 that would be a premier, obviously, in in this matter. And I was looking for precedence
07:13 in regards to these group applications that can be handed over to the Conseil d'Etat.
07:21 And I actually it's a quite recent legal framework and I didn't find any precedence where it
07:28 was a success. Maybe this one will be one of the first.
07:31 One final question. You were with us with Yann Chourier after the killing of Nael, where
07:35 there were those riots in June and July. What conclusions are you seeing that the government's
07:41 drawn? Is it hunkering down in an us versus them mentality or is it open to reform?
07:48 No, I I think the open to reform is what we discussed. It's not got to do in the first
07:54 place with legal issues. It's got to do with political will. Then I.
08:01 Which direction is the government taking?
08:04 I don't know. I count on this decision and and and regarding this case that you were
08:12 referring to, what I what I see is that for the moment there's been no special reform.
08:20 But what I see is that this policeman is still in prison and they had been at the time a
08:28 lot of talk about what is going to happen to him. And I hear that there's been a lot
08:34 of noise about police associations supporting him, saying that he should not be in prison
08:42 etc. But I see that for the moment he is still in prison and it seems that the courts and
08:49 the investigating judge and judges and prosecutors dealing with his case have considered that
08:57 he has reasons to still be in prison. That is all I know about the case.
09:01 That particular case. William Joulier, many thanks for joining us here on France 24.
09:06 Thanks for your invitation.
09:07 Stay with us. There's much more to come. More news plus today's business and sports.
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