NGO asks UN to send observers to demonstrations in France

A non-governmental organization (NGO) League for Human Rights (LDH) today asked the United Nations to send observers to oversee the police response to the large demonstrations called for Saturday in France.

The organization denounced the “chaotic and inconsistent” reaction of state security forces and agencies last weekend and the intention of the French government to harden future detachments.

“ The only government announcements refer to an escalation in the use of untrained means of repression to maintain order,” LDH warned.

For this reason, the NGO “removes the matter to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and calls on the High Commissioner for Human Rights to carry out a mission to observe the demonstrations that will take place so that demonstrators can express themselves peacefully”.

The LDH also asked the government to provide political responses “whose objective is also unscheduled” because “although the state of democracy is a matter of public debate, the government has the primary responsibility to restore the right to peaceful protest.”.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, had already expressed his concern about incidents related to protests by secondary school students in France, in particular after a secondary school student lost his hand due to a grenade thrown by police forces in Lens.

The French President, Emmanuel Macron, will receive representatives from three student organizations on Friday to discuss personally the climate of enormous social tension triggered by the mobilizations of secondary school students, a movement that gained strength with the accession of other protest groups, such as the ‘yellow vests’.

The Elisha Palace indicated that the head of state will receive “secondary students and representatives of student organizations” to “listen to the demands and concerns of the representatives of secondary education students”.

Student unions call for a comprehensive reform of secondary education, addressing from overcrowding in classrooms to mainly reformulation of the process of access to higher education.

The system has been much criticized because of the ‘neck’ of admission requests it created, in addition to the difficulty faced by teachers to analyze all requests.

The meeting between Macron and the students will take place on the eve of a new round of mass mobilizations scheduled for Saturday.

The Elisha Palace seeks to control these events as far as possible and Macron even announced the ban on all demonstrations organized by non-union groups.

In addition, the Ministry of the Interior decided to extend the traffic restrictions already in force in the emblematic areas of Paris until 06:00 on Monday (local time).

The French left-wing and right-wing parties also expressed their frustration after a fruitless meeting with French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu today.

Parties such as La France Insumise (LFI, France Insubmissive) reported that the meeting did not result in any kind of advance to try to calm the situation.