Students say police singled them out while on a school trip because of their skin colour

Three former high school students are suing the French state for racial discrimination saying they were stopped and searched by police on a school trip because of their skin colour.

The high-profile court case, which opens in Paris on Monday, is the latest legal battle in France over men of black and north African heritage being routinely pulled over on the street and asked to show their identity papers with no explanation.

Lawyers for the high school students argue that the French police continue to use racial profiling to arbitrarily stop non-white people, despite a landmark court ruling in 2016 when the French state was found guilty of carrying out unjustified identity checks on men from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

The final-year high school students of Malian, Comorian and Moroccan heritage were with their teacher and class on the way back from a two-day school trip to Brussels in March 2017 where they had been learning about democracy and the European Union. Their train from Brussels had just arrived at Paris’s Gare du Nord station at around 8pm and the boys, aged between 18 and 19, were getting off with their bags when they were singled out and stopped by police.

First, one of the pupils was stopped on the platform, then the other two were stopped in front of their class and made to open their bags, without explanation.

Their teacher, Elise Boscherel, from a high school in a Paris banlieue in Seine-Saint-Denis described how she was shocked that police stopped her pupils, saying the officers were rude to the boys, using the informal “tu” form of address and were rude to her when she attempted to intervene. She said the pupils felt “humiliated” that they were stopped and made to open their bags for no reason in front of their teacher and class.

One of the pupils, Mamadou, described how the court case was about ending systematic discrimination, saying he was disappointed things hadn’t changed in France for 20 years. He said at the time of the incident he was “shocked” he was stopped by police when he was with his teacher. “She represents the state too,” he said.

He added: “We feel that if we do nothing, this will never stop: my little brothers, my children, my grandchildren will go through the same thing.”

In court, the French interior ministry will have to prove solid reasons why the boys were stopped.

In a report published last year, the French rights ombudsman estimated that black or Arab men in France were 20 times more likely than others to be stopped by police for identity checks. Often these checks came with no explanation.

The 2016 ruling that found France guilty of carrying out unjustified identity checks on non-white men came after a case was brought by 13 French men of black or north African origin aged 18 to 35. Their professions ranged from student to teacher, local councillor to professional sportsman. All said they were stopped by police in various cities across France because of their race.