European rights tsar slams France over 'rising' discrimination
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, on Tuesday released a report entitled ‘France: persistent discrimination endangers human rights’. The Latvian appears largely unimpressed with what he saw during a fact-finding mission to France last October, and denounces increasing anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim acts and racism in general, homophobia, a rise in "hate speech", the poor treatment of asylum seekers and the “social exclusion and marginalisation of persons with disabilities”. Carine Fouteau reports on the Commissioner’s conclusions.
InIn a report published on Tuesday, the European Council’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, paints a sorry picture of the intolerance and racism that he says is on the rise in France. Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism against Roma and “serious and chronic inadequacies” regarding policies towards asylum seekers are some of the issues he highlights in the report, in which he slams behaviour by sections of both the country’s institutions and citizens.
