The UN Human Rights Committee has expressed its concern over France's violations of human rights, especially against citizens of foreign countries, Paralel.Az reports.

The committee released report containing the final observations on Ecuador, France, Greece, Iceland, Pakistan and Türkiye.

The Committee stated its concern about foreign nationals being forcibly returned at the French-Italian border without access to a proper asylum procedure, including information about their rights. The Committee was also concerned about the impact of systematic evacuations, sometimes with excessive force, of migrants’ temporary shelters on the UK-French border and slums in the French overseas territory of Mayotte, worsening the already deplorable living conditions faced by these people.

The Committee called on France to ensure that the principle of non-refoulement is upheld in practice and that all those seeking international protection have access to an independent appeal mechanism that suspends removal, expulsion, and extradition procedures. It also urged France to step up its efforts to provide enough decent accommodation for and to end the mistreatment of asylum seekers and irregular migrants in border areas, particularly along the Franco-British border and in Mayotte.

The Committee was concerned about reported threats to the right to peaceful assembly as a result of increased arbitrary checks and arrests of demonstrators, as well as a rise in bans on demonstrations by authorities on the grounds of an alleged threat to public order, including recent demonstrations to support the Palestinian people.

The Committee was also concerned about alleged excessive use of force in policing demonstrations and was profoundly disturbed that, since May 2024, when protests erupted in New Caledonia against the proposed change in constitutional law, some of which had turned violent and law enforcement officers had allegedly used excessive force, leading to a number of fatalities, including ten Indigenous Kanaks and two gendarmes, as well as hundreds of injuries.