France: Return of mass identity checks
01 January 1991
France: Return of mass identity checks
artdoc June=1993
Within days of being appointed, the new Interior Minister Charles
Pasqua announced, as part of his package on nationality and
immigration, that he would be returning to the police powers to
stop, search and check the papers of those `suspected of being
illegally in France'. Identity cards are to be made forgery-
proof, residents' visas are to be introduced, and expulsion made
easier, so that 'illegal residents' can be deported `en masse'
to their country of origin.(Weekly Journal 22.4.93, Figaro
17.4.93, Le Monde 12.5.93).
Deaths in custody
Seventeen-year-old, Makome M'Bowle, Zairean, was, according to
an eye witness, shot by a police officer through the head at
point blank range whilst being interrogated at a police station
in northern Paris. Previously, the police had carried out four
mass swoops on the Goutte d'Or and adjoining Barbes district.
Ostensibly a crackdown on `delinquents', the raids were
accompanied by mass identity checks of all black youth. Makome
had been arrested on suspicion that he was a petty criminal.
Police officer, Inspector Pascal Compain, who has been charged
with voluntary manslaughter, said he was trying `only to
intimidate' the suspect by pointing a gun at his head.
The following day, 32-year-old Pascal Tais, an Arab immigrant,
died of a ruptured spleen in police custody in the south-west
town of Arachon. The police said that the blow that ruptured his
spleen was self-inflicted. The same day, Rachid Ardjouni, an Arab
immigrant, was shot in the head by police in Wattrelos, northern
France. 17-year-old Ardjouni, who police say was trespassing on
school grounds, fell into a coma and died two days later. Sgt
Frederic Fournier has been charged with armed assault, but is
claiming that the shooting was an accident. The fourth youth to
die, Eric Simonte, an 18-year old white youth from Chambery, was
shot whilst allegedly resisting arrest for stealing car tyres.
Charles Pasqua acquired a reputation for anti-immigrant measures
following his period as interior minister between 1986 and 1988
when he gave the police more powers to expel immigrants without
judicial controls and defended police even after a series of
violent events included the murder of a student during a
demonstration (Guardian 15.4.93, Newsweek 19.4.93).
National Front in presidential elections
In the French elections, Le Pen's National Front gained 12 per
cent of the poll, but the French electoral system is such that
this did not convert into any seats. In fact, the opposite took
place. The FN lost their one seat in Dreux, Normandy, by just 105
votes. Le Pen failed to secure Nice, which it had been widely
predicted that he would win and Brunot Megret narrowly missed
winning Marseille.
Prime minister, Edouard Balladur has made it clear that Le
Pen's Front National will be consulted on new judicial procedures
- something that would have been unthinkable in the past
(Guardian 9.4.93).
IRR European Race Audit no 4 1993. Contact: Liz Fekete, Institute
of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS. Tel: ++ 071
837 0041