The European Roma Rights Centre and the Human Rights League reported that over 13,400 Roma were evicted from informal settlements between January and September, compared to 9,400 in all of 2012. In August, France's National Consultative Council for Human Rights called the mass distribution of removal orders to Roma "administrative harassment" and urged the government to halt evictions from slums and squats without offering adequate alternative housing and to respect EU free movement rules.

In October, the ECtHR ruled that France breached the right to private and family life of a group of French Travelers by ordering their eviction from land they had occupied for many years.

At its Universal Periodic Review in June, France accepted recommendations to end ethnic profiling, and announced amendments to the police and gendarmerie code of ethics. No further action was taken to stop discriminatory identity checks. In October, a Paris court ruled against plaintiffs alleging ethnic profiling, arguing anti-discrimination norms did not apply.

In May, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances expressed concern that the lack of a suspensive appeal in the fast-track asylum procedure creates a risk of return to enforced disappearance, and too frequent use of police custody in France.

Riots erupted in the Paris suburb of Trappes in July after police stopped a woman wearing a full-face veil. A 14-year-old lost an eye by what appeared to be a flashball fired by police. Rights groups reported a rise in attacks against Muslims, particularly women.

In April, the Defender of Rights raised concerns about an estimated 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children in the overseas French department of Mayotte, hundreds of whom are left to fend for themselves.

In July, the parliament abrogated the criminal offense of insulting the president of the republic following a March ECtHR ruling that it violated freedom of expression.

Parliament legalized same-sex marriage in April. SOS Homophobie, a non-profit association aimed at countering homophobic discrimination and violence,recorded testimonies of 3,200 homophobic incidents as of November, compared to 2,000 in all of 2012. In May, the government pledged to begin publishing statistics on homophobic violence in 2014.

In August, a new law introduced a crime of "reduction to slavery" into the penal code, also criminalizing forced labor, reduction to servitude and exploitation of people reduced to slavery.

In two separate cases, the ECtHR ruled in September and November that France's return of a failed Tamil asylum-seeker to Sri Lanka and of a Congolese national to the Democratic Republic of Congo would breach the torture prohibition.

Amid reports of mass data interception by US and British intelligence agencies, Prime Minister Ayrault denied allegations in a July Le Monde article that French intelligence services were systematically collecting data on communications in France. At time of writing, parliament was examining a bill to increase moderately oversight of intelligence agencies.

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.