EPINAY-SOUS-SENART, France, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Mohamed Assam went to purchase groceries at a grocery store near his dwelling close to Paris one April afternoon in 2020. By the time he returned, he had incurred greater than 900 euros in fines for 9 completely different infractions with out as soon as, he mentioned, coming into contact with a police officer.
The 27-year-old from the Paris suburb of Epinay-sous-Senart mentioned he discovered of the fines about a week later, when he acquired notifications in the submit. His alleged offences, which he’s contesting, embody violating COVID-19 lockdown guidelines and missing right headlights on his quad bike, in keeping with the notices he acquired from an inside ministry company reviewed by Reuters.
“It was a surprise, a bad surprise,” mentioned Assam. He now owes 1000’s of euros in complete for fines accrued since 2019, together with late cost charges, in keeping with Assam and his lawyer.
French President Emmanuel Macron – dealing with criticism from rivals who accuse him of being smooth on drug sellers and different offenders – has applied a string of insurance policies geared toward curbing city crime. Those embody larger authority for police to problem fines – a energy police have seized upon.
Nationwide, the variety of non-traffic associated fines has grown by greater than six instances – to 1.54 million final 12 months from 240,000 in 2018, in keeping with the inside ministry company for fines. In 2020, when the nation underwent a number of COVID-19 lockdowns, the quantity surpassed 2 million.
Proponents say the fines scale back the burden on the justice system by preserving minor infractions out of court docket. Critics say the penalties permit police to dispense sanctions at their very own discretion, with out correct accountability. Some attorneys and rights advocates say this energy has resulted in police concentrating on poorer folks and people from ethnic minority backgrounds, leaving some folks saddled with hefty money owed.
French legal guidelines strictly restrict the gathering of knowledge about a person’s race or ethnicity, which makes it tough to find out precisely how the fines impression ethnic minority teams, however the census does acquire some figures on immigrants, based mostly on fatherland and nationality. A Reuters overview of census-related and a few fine-related police information from throughout France reveals that police have fined folks at larger charges in areas with the heaviest percentages of immigrants.
“There is systemic discrimination,” mentioned Alice Achache, a lawyer representing some Paris residents who’re difficult fines.
President Macron has beforehand mentioned there is no such thing as a “systemic racism” in the French police. His workplace declined to remark for this report, as did the nationwide police. The inside ministry didn’t reply to questions. Police in different nations such because the United States and Britain have confronted accusations of over-policing and over-sanctioning of minority communities.
In Epinay-sous-Senart, Assam’s city, a Reuters overview of knowledge from greater than two years of police experiences recording incidents involving no less than one tremendous discovered greater than 80% of these incidents occurred in two adjoining neighborhoods the place residents say many ethnic minority households reside. Of the 478 police experiences that recorded fines from April 2018 to July 2020, 403 had been from that a part of city, in keeping with the native police information, which Reuters obtained through a freedom of knowledge request. The overwhelming majority of the folks fined had Arab or African surnames, the info confirmed.
More than one-third of Epinay-sous-Senart residents ages 25 to 54 are of non-European immigrant background, as are greater than half of the city’s kids, in keeping with 2017 census information compiled by France Strategie, a authorities suppose tank.
The heavy focus of fines in elements of the city the place immigrants reside suits a sample that has performed out throughout France, in keeping with the Reuters overview. Police issued 58 COVID-related fines per 1,000 inhabitants in the 5 Paris districts with the best focus of residents with non-European backgrounds, based mostly on France Strategie’s figures. That is about 40% larger than the speed of different areas, the place police issued nearly 42 fines per 1,000 folks. learn extra
Nationwide, the speed of pandemic-related fines in areas the place official statistics present a excessive focus of immigrants was 54% larger than in different areas between mid March and mid May 2020 throughout the nation’s first nationwide lockdown.
Police additionally generally problem fines remotely and tremendous the identical folks repeatedly, together with now and again a number of instances inside minutes, in keeping with tremendous recipients and protection attorneys. The burden of those distant and repeat fines falls closely on minorities, these folks say, including to their suspicion police are concentrating on ethnic teams.
Issuing fines remotely is a breach of police procedures for non-traffic infractions, in keeping with a number of authorized specialists. Philippe Astruc, the general public prosecutor in Rennes, runs the workplace answerable for processing fines that people nationwide dispute. He mentioned police shouldn’t problem a tremendous with out stopping the rule breaker, besides in the case of sure road-related rule breaches.
Despite the principles, some attorneys representing tremendous recipients say distant fining happens. Achache, the Paris lawyer, mentioned that police know the names of people as a result of they repeatedly conduct id checks and recipients generally don’t even know they’re being fined on the time of the alleged infraction, she mentioned.
Proving bias in fining practices is tough, some students say. Other elements that would clarify the geographical disparity in tremendous charges, sociologists mentioned, embody larger focus of police patrols or larger crime charges in sure areas.
Aline Daillere, a sociologist researching policing at Paris Saclay University, mentioned the Reuters evaluation reveals “certain categories of the population are very frequently fined,” principally younger males from poorer neighborhoods who’re – or are perceived to be – minorities. One potential rationalization, she mentioned, is that police are concentrating on minority populations. But it’s not potential to show discrimination, she mentioned, with out information exhibiting that police deal with folks of various ethnicities in a different way. Such information doesn’t exist.
Augustin Dumas, the municipal police chief of Epinay-sous-Senart till the summer season of 2020, denied concentrating on a explicit space or part of the inhabitants, saying police responded to complaints by inhabitants. “If someone is doing something wrong, you need to act,” mentioned Dumas, now an elected official in a close by city.
Macron, who got here to energy 5 years in the past on a centrist platform and was re-elected this 12 months, has toughened his stance on legislation and order amid stiff competitors from the correct. Rights advocates say his authorities has chipped away at civil liberties whereas giving larger powers to authorities, reminiscent of the flexibility to shut mosques with out trial.
The expanded police powers embody the correct to problem on-the-spot fines. Several new finable offences have been added since 2020, together with drug use and loitering in constructing hallways. The authorities is in search of so as to add extra police fines as a part of a broader safety invoice. Lawmakers are resulting from vote on the laws this month.
The proposed growth of fines is geared toward offering “efficiency and simplicity,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin advised the higher home of parliament in October. During one other debate in the decrease home in November, Darmanin denied racial profiling by police in issuing fines.
The new fines the federal government is proposing, which embody penalties for offences like graffiti and stealing petrol, can be marked on a particular person’s legal document, not like fines for minor infractions reminiscent of making noise, littering or breaking lockdown restrictions. Either method, what troubles some critics is the shortage of judicial oversight.
Justice is being taken out of the courtroom and carried out on the streets, with out safeguards reminiscent of proper to a protection, mentioned Daillere, the sociologist. “If we don’t go in front of a judge, what stops a police officer from giving out a sanction even if there isn’t an infraction?”
NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE CROSSHAIRS
Born in France to parents from Morocco, Assam said police have stereotyped and “preconceived ideas” about him and his associates of immigrant origin. He mentioned police ceaselessly cease them, which leaves him feeling lower than equal to his fellow residents. “We are regular people like everyone else, we are French, we are proud of being French,” mentioned Assam, over espresso in a neighborhood cafe early this 12 months.
Epinay-sous-Senart sits around 30 kilometers southeast of central Paris with a population of just over 12,000. To the east of the town’s historic quarter is a zone developed in the 1960s, where some people who migrated from France’s former African colonies settled.
Assam lives in this newer part of town in an area known as ‘Les Cineastes,’ a series of modern apartment blocks served by a cafe and a few shops. It was in this and an adjacent neighborhood where police issued the vast majority of fines over the more than two-year period Reuters reviewed.
Epinay-sous-Senart’s fee of violent and non-violent crime is decrease than the typical for different cities in the identical division and the larger Paris area, inside ministry figures for 2021 present.
Dumas, appointed municipal police chief in 2017 by the city’s then center-right mayor, advised Reuters his aim was to deal with anti-social conduct and drug dealing.
Some people were fined multiple times, Reuters found. The 478 police reports Reuters reviewed involved a total of 185 people. About one-fifth of the recipients were fined in three or more incidents, according to the police data Reuters obtained. Reuters also examined the contents of the police reports, which revealed some people received multiple fines for the same incident. The reports also showed many fines were issued under local decrees banning outdoor gatherings and allowing police to stop people in specified areas.
Hassan Bouchouf received fines on more than two dozen occasions, according to the town’s fine data. The 37-year-old factory worker told Reuters the police would either tell him to move on or fine him whenever they would see him and his friends socializing outside, even when they had moved to the nearby woods.
“Who am I disturbing?” he mentioned. “Am I waking up the squirrels?”
Bouchouf owes the treasury greater than 20,000 euros for fines acquired between 2017 and 2020, in keeping with a treasury abstract dated Aug. 9.
Dumas made no apology for issuing repeat fines. He mentioned individuals who had been fined repeatedly had dedicated repeated infractions.
The Essonne police division didn’t reply to questions in regards to the fines acquired by Assam and Bouchouf.
Epinay-sous-Senart’s police have been less active in issuing fines since the arrival of a new mayor and police chief in the summer of 2020, according to the mayor, two police officers and more than a dozen residents interviewed by Reuters. The mayor’s office in Epinay-sous-Senart didn’t respond to requests for data for this period.
Damien Allouch, the town’s center-left mayor elected in June 2020, told Reuters that police continue to issue fines where necessary but said anti-social behavior can be addressed through other means. “Sometimes discussion is enough,” he said.
Allouch didn’t respond to questions about the earlier police data Reuters obtained from the municipality.
Georges Pujals, who served as mayor until 2020 and appointed Dumas, denied there had been discrimination by police. He said that during lockdown, police were applying COVID-related rules set by the government and that a core group of people who received multiple fines were well known to police. He added that municipal police officers carry out their law enforcement duties under the supervision of the public prosecutor.
FIGHTING BACK
Assam’s fines led to a fair deeper tangle with the police.
After learning of the April 2020 fines, Assam verbally confronted Dumas on the street later that same month, according to both men and a witness. Dumas says Assam threatened him; Assam says he merely insulted Dumas. Both men told Reuters there was no physical violence. The following morning, police arrested Assam at his house, according to Assam.
In November 2020, the Court of Evry found Assam guilty of violence and threats against an official, according to a court document. Assam is appealing a six-month suspended prison sentence, said his lawyer, Clara Gandin, and his appeal is due to be heard in December. Gandin said that police harassed young people in the neighborhood and that she intends to argue that this provocation justifies a lighter sentence.
Separately, Assam has contested the nine fines from his supermarket trip, plus four others from April and May 2020, on various grounds, including that he wasn’t stopped by officers in all cases and that police reports contained insufficient detail, Gandin said. In late November, a police tribunal canceled two of the fines, both COVID-19 related, according to Gandin. He continues to challenge the other 11 fines, which include several related to the quad bike he drove on his supermarket trip.
Reuters found at least 45 people in Epinay-sous-Senart and elsewhere in the greater Paris region who say they were fined without any contact with a police officer, according to recipients and their lawyers. The fines were issued for antisocial behavior, such as making noise, and lockdown breaches between 2017 and 2021, according to the treasury summaries and fine notices shared with Reuters or the lawyers. Almost all of the individuals were immigrants or descendants of immigrants based on their names.
Assam complained about remote fines during a police interview following his April 2020 arrest, according to him and a person close to the local public prosecutor’s office. That prompted a review by the prosecutor’s office, which found that police had issued fines to Assam remotely, that person said.
The local public prosecutor’s office said it couldn’t comment on Assam’s case. But it told Reuters that after reviewing a 2020 complaint about remote fines, the local prosecutor sent mayors a letter to remind police of the rules. The letter, reviewed by Reuters, said that lockdown-related “fines can only be issued after direct contact with the person.”
“This confirms that the prosecutor is perfectly aware that there has been remote fining” and the fines are “not legal because they cannot be issued without physical contact,” Gandin, Assam’s lawyer, told Reuters.
‘POLICE HARASSMENT’
The criticism over police fines comes amid broader allegations of discrimination by police. One flash level has been police id checks.
In a significant ruling, the Paris Court of Appeal in 2021 found discrimination was behind police identity checks of three high school students – French nationals of Moroccan, Malian and Comorian origin – at a Paris train station in 2017. Each individual received 1,500 euros in compensation, plus legal costs, the court said at the time.
Last year, Assam and more than 30 other Epinay-sous-Senart residents filed a complaint with the French state’s rights watchdog, the Defenseur des Droits, about the town police’s approach to fines during the pandemic.
Remote fining constitutes “systemic discrimination” by police towards young men of North African or Subsaharan African origin, said the April 2021 submission, prepared by Gandin and other lawyers. It alleges police engaged in remote and repetitive fining, which it described as “police harassment.”
Complaints about police fines have mounted since then. In March, about 60 residents from three Paris neighborhoods filed a joint complaint to the Defenseur des Droits with similar allegations. The watchdog is investigating about 10 complaints alleging improper police fines, mostly from Paris, according to a person familiar with the matter. The organization can make policy recommendations and help challenge rights violations but doesn’t have the power to cancel court or administrative decisions, a watchdog spokesperson said.
Claire Hedon, head of the Defenseur des Droits, declined to comment on the probes. But she said the problem with fines is that they can be issued arbitrarily and are difficult to challenge. “The principle of justice is to be able to appeal,” she said.
Debts accrued as a result of fines can continue to weigh heavily on individuals, lawyers say.
After a period of unemployment, Assam recently said he found a job in sales, speaking in early November. He said he continued to receive letters about his court proceedings as well as notices from the authorities saying they will send bailiffs or seize money he owes from his bank account. The warnings leave him stressed, he said.
“Letters come to the home, I do not even open them anymore,” he mentioned.
Additional reporting by M. B. Pell in New York; Editing by Cassell Bryan-Low, Christian Lowe and Janet Roberts.
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