France faces class action lawsuit over racial profiling by police

In a first for France, six non-governmental organisations launched a class-action lawsuit on Wednesday to press the French government into tackling systemic discrimination by police officers carrying out identity checks.

The organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, contend that French police use racial profiling in ID checks, targeting Black people and people of Arab descent. 

They served Prime Minister Jean Castex and France’s interior and justice ministers with formal legal notice of demands for concrete steps and deep law enforcement reforms to ensure that racial profiling does not determine who gets stopped by police. 

The lead lawyer in the case, Antoine Lyon-Caen, said that the legal action is not targeting individual police officers but "the system itself that generates, by its rules, habits, culture, a discriminatory practice".

“Since the shortcomings of the state (concern) a systemic practice, the response, the reactions, the remedies, the measures must be systemic,” Lyon-Caen said at a news conference with NGOs taking action. They include the Open Society Justice Initiative and three French grassroots groups.

The European Union is pushing AstraZeneca to supply the bloc with more doses of its Covid-19 vaccine from plants in Europe and Britain after the company announced delivery delays, adding to frustrations over the EU's inoculation programme.

The EU is making more comprehensive checks on vaccines before approval, which means a slower rollout of shots compared with some other regions, especially former EU member Britain.

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The issue has been exacerbated by Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca and Pfizer of the United States both announcing delivery holdups in recent weeks. AstraZeneca's delay was caused by production issues at a plant in Belgium.

"UK factories are part of our advanced purchase agreement and that is why they have to deliver," EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told a news conference, noting that two of the four factories from which AstraZeneca has committed to providing vaccines to the EU are in Britain.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it would have been a "great pity" if the United Kingdom had stayed in the European Union's vaccine programme rather than set up its own plan.

"I do think that we've been able to do things differently, and better, in some ways," he said in parliament.

AstraZeneca, which partnered with Britain's Oxford University to develop its vaccine, said last week it would cut supplies to the EU in the first quarter, with an EU official saying that meant the EU would receive 31 million doses in the period, or 60% less than initially agreed, due to production issues at a Belgian factory.

The EU has been pushing the company for a week to revise these cuts, but it is unclear how it can force AstraZeneca to deliver the agreed amounts.

Pascal Soriot, the French chief executive of AstraZeneca, told newspapers on Tuesday the EU contract was based on a best-effort clause and did not commit the company to a specific timetable for deliveries.

Soriot said that vaccines meant for the EU were produced in four plants in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy.

But EU Commission officials said on Wednesday that under the contract, the company had also committed to providing vaccines from two factories in Britain.

They added the firm had not provided sufficient explanations on why doses could not be shipped from stocks at factories which experienced no production problem, like those in Britain.

Reuters on Tuesday exclusively reported that EU's calls to reroute doses from Britain had not been answered by AstraZeneca .

As an example of how the glitches are biting, delays in deliveries are forcing health authorities in Spain's wealthiest regions of Madrid and Catalonia to restrict inoculations even as a third wave of contagion rages, officials said.

Adding to the confusion, a factory in Wales that produces AstraZeneca's vaccine was partially evacuated on Wednesday after it received a suspicious package and police said a bomb disposal unit was dealing with the incident.

Meeting or no meeting?.

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The EU has also threatened to monitor future exports of Covid-19 vaccines in retaliation for companies announcing delays, although the EU trade commissioner ruled out any export bans.

Fraught relations showed up in confusion about the timing of a meeting between the EU and AstraZeneca.

EU officials said the firm had pulled out of a virtual meeting scheduled for Wednesday, an Austrian minister then said it was set for Thursday, which was followed by an AstraZeneca statement saying it would go ahead on Wednesday as planned.

The EU contract with AstraZeneca is an advance purchase agreement for the supply of at least 300 million doses provided the vaccine is approved as safe and effective, with doses delivered in stages. A decision on approval is scheduled for Friday.

In a further sign of friction, EU officials also said details revealed by Soriot on production capacity and best-effort clause were confidential, and hinted at the possible breach of contract.

Officials added that the best-effort clause was standard in contracts with manufacturers of products in development.

"Best effort is a completely standard clause when you are signing a contract with a company for a product that does not yet exist," one official said. "Obviously you cannot put a completely legal obligation" under these conditions.

But the official said best effort meant the company had to show an "overall" effort to develop and deliver vaccines.

AstraZeneca said on Wednesday: "Each supply chain was developed with input and investment from specific countries or international organisations based on the supply agreements, including our agreement with the European Commission."

"As each supply chain has been set up to meet the needs of a specific agreement, the vaccine produced from any supply chain is dedicated to the relevant countries or regions and makes use of local manufacturing wherever possible," the firm added.

Philanthropist Bill Gates told Reuters the rollout of vaccines was a "super hard allocation problem" that was putting pressure on global institutions, governments and drugmakers.

"If you're a pharma company that didn't make a vaccine, you're not under pressure. But the ones who did make the vaccine – they are the ones being attacked," he said. "It's all very zero-sum."

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CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19)
VACCINE
EUROPEAN UNION
URSULA VON DER LEYEN

French sailor Charlie Dalin first to complete round-the-world Vendée Globe

French skipper Charlie Dalin became the first to cross the finish line at the end of the solo round-the-world Vendee Globe on Wednesday, but that is no guarantee that he will win the epic race.

The 36-year-old led a five-boat sprint for the line at Les Sables d'Olonne in Brittany, northern France, after 80 days and 28,000 often hazardous miles at sea.

But the ninth edition of sailing's 'Everest' could still have a first ever non-French winner.

German skipper Boris Herrmann in Seaexplorer-Yacht Club de Monaco was just 82.02nm behind Dalin in the final stretch.

He could still end up the winner as he is due a six-hour bonus for his part in the rescue of Kevin Escoffier off the Cape of Good Hope in December.

Louis Burton (Bureau Vallee 2) was third, followed by Thomas Ruyant (LinkedOut) and Yannick Bestaven (Maitre Coq IV) back in fifth.

Bestaven, like Herrmann, helped in Escoffier's rescue and will receive a 10hr 15min bonus when he makes port.

While Dalin and Herrmann had taken a more easterly route, the next three boats were all further north and further west and moving faster. The three pursuers had all covered more ocean in the previous four hours than the two leaders.

Bestaven said he was looking forward to the finish.

"I'm super happy to finish already because we've been around the world for 79 days or nearly 80," he said. "To have such a tight and breathless finish, it's true that it's exciting, but also exhausting because, not to hide it from you, we are pushing hard on the boats here, so we can't wait for it to finish."

For Dalin, dry land remained a distant dream just hours before his arrival.

"It's been such a long time that I've been at sea that I've forgotten that life on land exists. I'm so used to being here on Apivia that I find it impossible to believe the finish is close," he said.

For race director Jacques Caraes, the winner could be decided by "a matter of minutes" after around 28,000 often hazardous miles at sea.

"This is totally unique," he said.

Ruyant's team manager Marcus Hutchinson told the Vendée website that he hoped his sailor would win but was enjoying the drama.

"Here we are 24 hours or a bit more from the finish and we just don't know how this is going to pan out," said Hutchinson. "So thank you to all of these skippers, they have made this an incredible sporting spectacle like we have never seen on this race."

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

SAILING
SPORT
FRANCE
VENDÉE GLOBE