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Europe's top rights court rules against France in racial profiling case
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 26, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
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Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 26, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
The European Court ruled against France for racial profiling, ordering compensation to Karim Touil. The case highlights ongoing discrimination concerns.
PARIS (Reuters) -Europe's top human rights court ruled on Thursday that French police had carried out discriminatory checks on a Frenchman of African descent, the first such verdict in a case of racial profiling brought against France.
The French government "failed to provide objective and reasonable justification" for the police carrying out three identity checks on Karim Touil within the space of 10 days in 2011 in the city centre of Besancon, the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said in its ruling.
The court ordered France to pay Touil 3,000 euros ($3,512) for violating articles 14 and 8, on discrimination and the right to a private life, of the European Human Rights Convention.
However, for five other applicants in the case, also young men of African descent, the court found there was no discrimination due to lack of evidence, noting that the ID checks had mostly taken place "against a backdrop of tension".
While welcoming Touil's successful claim, Lanna Hollo, a rights advocate with French organisation RECLAIM, who has been involved in the case for 13 years, said the court's reasoning risked reinforcing discrimination in certain zones.
"It fails to sufficiently protect all people in all parts of the territory - especially those living in France's poorer neighbourhoods with high visible minority populations," she said.
In recent years the court has issued rulings against Germany and Switzerland over discriminatory police checks.
A study published on Tuesday by France's human rights watchdog found that young Black men or those perceived as Arab or North African were four times more likely to be stopped by police and 12 times more likely to undergo "extensive" checks, involving being body-searched or taken to the police station.
($1 = 0.8542 euros)
(Reporting by Layli ForoudiEditing by Gareth Jones)
The European Court ruled that French police conducted discriminatory identity checks on Karim Touil, a Frenchman of African descent, without providing objective justification.
The court ordered France to pay Karim Touil 3,000 euros for violating his rights under the European Human Rights Convention.
The court found that for five other applicants, also young men of African descent, there was no discrimination due to a lack of evidence regarding their ID checks.
Rights advocate Lanna Hollo expressed concerns that the court's reasoning might not adequately protect individuals in poorer neighborhoods with high visible minority populations.
A recent study found that young Black men or those perceived as Arab or North African were four times more likely to be stopped by police compared to others.
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