Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in France are progressive by world standards. Although same-sex sexual activity was a capital crime that often resulted in the death penalty during the Ancien Régime, all sodomy laws were repealed in 1791 during the French Revolution. However, a lesser-known indecent exposure law that often targeted LGBT people was introduced in 1960, before being repealed in 1980.
Since the end of the 1980s, several members of POLISARIO have decided to discontinue their military or political activities for the Polisario Front. Most of them returned from the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria to Morocco, among them a few founder members and senior officials. Some of them are now actively promoting Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, which Morocco considers its Southern Provinces. Their individual reasons to stop working for POLISARIO, as reported in the media, vary, but include allegations of human rights violations, monopolization and abuse of power, blackmailing and sequestering the refugee population in Tindouf, and squandering foreign aid. They also claim POLISARIO is controlled by the government of Algeria and as one former member of POLISARIO put it, "[was] a group of Moroccan students who were urging the Spanish colonizer to leave and who had never claimed independence or the separation from motherland Morocco."
Prostitution in France was legal until April 2016, but several surrounding activities were illegal, like operating a brothel, living off the avails (pimping), and paying for sex with someone under the age of 18.
The Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme is a French governmental organization created in 1947 by an arrêté from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to monitor the respect for human rights in the country. It may acts as counsellor for the government and propose laws, and then survey the application of governmental measures and laws voted in Parliament.
Elements from the French Armed Forces used deliberate torture during the Algerian War (1954–1962), creating an ongoing public controversy. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, a renowned French historian, estimated that there were "hundreds of thousands of instances of torture" by the French military in Algeria.
The United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture is an international observance held annually on 26 June to speak out against the crime of torture and to honor and support victims and survivors throughout the world. The first 26 June events were launched in 1998.
Yannick Jadot is a French environmental activist and politician who ran for President of France in 2022, placing sixth with 4.6% of the vote. A member of The Ecologists (LÉ), he was elected to represent Paris in the Senate in 2023.
Yadh Ben Achour is a Tunisian lawyer, expert on public law and Islamic political theory. President of the Higher Political Reform Commission of Tunisia, he is then member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Didier Fassin, born in 1955, is a French anthropologist and sociologist. He is a Professor at the Collège de France on the chair “Moral Questions and Social Issues in Contemporary Societies” and the James D. Wolfensohn Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and holds a Direction of Studies in Political and Moral Anthropology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He was elected to the Academy of Europe in 2021 was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022.
Oussama Housne is a Moroccan human rights activist associated with the Moroccan Association of Human Rights; he rose to prominence when he was imprisoned for two crimes: false reporting to the police, and insulting the integrity of state police.
Civitas, also known as France Jeunesse Civitas and Institut Civitas, was an association generally considered to be Traditionalist Catholic, integrist, nationalist, and of the extreme right. The association defines itself as a "Traditionalist Catholic lobby group". The group was once associated with the Society of St. Pius X, but it has evolved under the new leadership of Alain Escada and the "chaplaincy" is now provided by Capuchin Friars of Morgon. On February 14, 2023, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) released a report in which it classified Civitas as a "religious nationalist", "anti-LGBTQ+", and "conspiracy" group.
Intersex people in France face significant gaps in protection from non-consensual medical interventions and protection from discrimination. The birth of Abel Barbin, a nineteenth-century intersex woman, is marked in Intersex Day of Remembrance. Barbin may have been the first intersex person to write a memoir, later published by Michel Foucault.
Zeinebou Mint Taleb Moussa is a women's rights activist in Mauritania, focused on combating sexual violence through her work as founder of El Wafa, a survivors' center, and as president of the non-governmental organization the Mauritanian Association for Maternal and Child Health.
Approximately 12 million French citizens are affected by disability. The history of disability activism in France dates back to the French Revolution when the national obligation to help disabled citizens was recognized, but it was "unclear whether or not such assistance should be public or private." Disabled civilians began to form the first associations to demand equal rights and integration in the workforce after the First World War. Between 1940 and 1945, 45,000 people with intellectual disabilities died from neglect in French psychiatric asylums. After the Second World War, parents of disabled children and charities created specialized institutions for disabled children for whom school was not accessible. In 2018, the French Government began to roll out a disability policy which aimed to increase the allowance for disabled adults to €900 per month, improve the digital accessibility of public services, and develop easy-to-read and understand language among other goals.
Kamel Jendoubi is a Tunisian politician and human rights activist.
The Collective Against Islamophobia in France was a French non-profit organisation, created in 2003 and dissolved in 2020, which mission was to combat discriminations towards Muslims in France, providing legal support to victims of such discriminations. It annually reported acts it considered Islamophobic. The organisation received critics, about its use of the term Islamophobia, and suspicion of having Islamist links.
Miguel Benasayag is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, epistemology researcher and former Franco-Argentinian Guévariste resistance fighter. He is close to the left-libertarian movement.
The villa Sésini is a torture center established in El Biar during the Algerian war in the city of Algiers.
Jérôme Segal is a French-Austrian essayist and historian, lecturer at Sorbonne University and a researcher and journalist in Vienna. He is also known for his contributions in the field of animal law. He is the author of several articles and books, in particular on Jewishness and animal advocacy.
The Study Mission on the Spoliation of Jews in France, also known as the Mission Mattéoli, was set up in March 1997 by Alain Juppé, then Prime Minister, and chaired by Jean Mattéoli.
