Emmanuel Macron said in a letter to a parliamentarian that the crackdown against the Uighur Muslim minority in China was "unacceptable" and that France condemned it "with the greatest firmness".
A response to a letter co-signed by around thirty parliamentarians.
Emmanuel Macron takes a position on the subject of the Uighurs.
In a letter addressed to ex-LREM deputy Aurélien Taché, the head of state affirms that "every opportunity is used in our bilateral contacts with the Chinese authorities to call on them to end the detentions in camps in Xinjiang", in the northwest China and considers the repression against the Uighurs "unacceptable".
"We will remain fully mobilized on the situation of the Uighurs"
It is a response to a letter that was sent to him in July by the member for Val-d'Oise, co-signed by about thirty parliamentarians.
Emmanuel Macron claims to have examined "with the greatest attention" the testimonies and documents "relating to the internment camps, mass detentions, disappearances, forced labor, forced sterilizations, the destruction of Uighur heritage and in particular the places cult, surveillance of the population and more generally of the entire repressive system set up in this region ".
"All these practices are unacceptable because they go against the universal principles enshrined in international conventions on human rights, and we condemn them with the greatest firmness," wrote Emmanuel Macron in this letter dated September 6 and made public by Aurélien Taché.
"I want to assure you that we will remain fully mobilized on the situation of the Uighurs," he assures us, detailing the initiatives taken by Paris at the international level, in particular "in UN forums".
Aurélien Taché wants to see China brought to justice "for crimes against humanity"
At the end of July, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had proposed that an "international mission emanating from independent observers", "under the leadership" of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, be travels to Xinjiang to investigate the situation of the Uighur Muslim minority.
In their letter, Aurélien Taché and his colleagues called on Emmanuel Macron to "act so that China is brought before the International Criminal Court for crimes against Humanity".
The Uighurs are the main ethnic group in Xinjiang, a huge region of China which notably has common borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Regularly struck by deadly attacks, attributed by Beijing to separatists or Uighur Islamists, it is under close police surveillance.