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Detention of children: European Court of Human Rights rules against France 11 times

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11 May 2023

On 4 May 2023, the European Court of Human Rights delivered three rulings concerning the confinement of families with children in administrative detention centres (CRA). These rulings concern seven children, aged between seven months and thirteen years, who were locked up in 2020 and 2021 at the Mesnil-Amelot and Metz detention centres.

Image: radiowood, CC BY-NC 2.0

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Translation of a press release originally published by La Cimade on 4 May.

On 4 May 2023, the European Court of Human Rights delivered three rulings concerning the confinement of families with children in administrative detention centres (CRA). These rulings concern seven children, aged between seven months and thirteen years, who were locked up in 2020 and 2021 at the Mesnil-Amelot and Metz detention centres.

Two new adverse rulings, part of an entirely predictable sequence, have thus been delivered against France. Since 2012, the ECHR has maintained the same line: the confinement of families with children in detention centres constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment. In 2020, it described this practice as a "flagrant lack of humanity".

The ECHR notes in one of today's decisions: "Taking into account the age of the minors, including an infant, the accommodation conditions at the Mesnil-Amelot detention centre and the duration of the detention, the Court considers that the competent authorities have subjected them to [inhuman or degrading] treatment. Having regard to the inseparable bonds between a mother and her eight-month-old baby, and the emotions they share, the Court considers that the same is true [...] in the case of the applicant A.M., emphasising moreover that she was alone with her three minor children."

In a third case also published today, the ECHR found that the detention of two children aged six and two at the time of the events for less than 10 full days "does not meet the threshold of severity required to constitute treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention."

Cimade reiterates that the confinement of a child, a major source of stress and anxiety, is brutal and traumatic and constitutes inhuman or degrading treatment. This is true regardless of the age of the child and the duration of the detention. These new judgments bring the number of rulings by the European Court of Human Rights against France to eleven. Numerous actors, institutions, independent administrative authorities and parliamentarians have been questioning the French authorities about such situations for many years. The ministry of the interior, however, continues to turn a deaf ear to a strict ban on the confinement of children throughout France, including Mayotte.

In 2022, as the national report on detention centres and facilities reveals, 94 children were still detained in CRAs in Metropolitan France and 2,905 in the Mayotte CRA alone. In addition, at least 129 unaccompanied children were detained in the CRAs in metropolitan France even though a juvenile court had not yet made a decision on their situation, in violation of the law and the necessary presumption of minority. Thus, the number of children who have been subjected to this brutal and traumatic confinement is in the thousands.

Since the first ruling against France in 2012 for inhuman and degrading treatment, more than 35,000 children have been locked up in detention centres.

While the immigration bill provides for the establishment of a flawed framework for the detention of families in detention, there is an urgent need for France to legislate and finally ban the administrative detention of children throughout the country.

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