Last Saturday, Systemic Justice held its first bilingual one-day workshop on strategic litigation.
The workshop took place in Saint-Denis, Paris, and was co-hosted with Ghett’Up, an association of young people from working class neighbourhoods who are campaigning for social justice in France. Their work consists of a range of initiatives, from educational and leadership programs to research and advocacy.
The discussions during the workshop took place at a critical time, following a high stakes, messy, and tense election in the country, and just before Paris holds an Olympic Games marred with racism and marginalisation.
The workshop brought together fifteen activists, students, and campaigners seeking to dismantle discrimination in the French education system to explore how strategic litigation could be used to further this objective.
Segregation in the French school system is a systemic and longstanding issue. In 2015, an international comparative study by the French government demonstrated a relatively high level of “social segregation” in middle and high schools in France compared to other countries. In 2019, French schools were named “the most unequal in the world”. Still, in 2024, even with the previous French government planning to promote equality in schools, government initiatives to tackle segregation in schools have been described as “unfinished” and “unambitious”. Furthermore, while making political statements about the need to tackle school segregation, the government went ahead in 2023 and introduced abaya bans in schools that marginalise and discriminate against Muslim women and girls.
Schools located in areas with high numbers of racially, socially, and economically marginalised communities also continue to report a lack of resourcing that further drives segregation in education. From students losing out on lessons due to teacher shortages, to shortages in nurses and social workers resulting in students who need additional support to access education being left behind. There have also been reports that these under-resourced schools have students learning in classrooms with poor hygiene, insulation, heating, and ventilation.
The aim of the workshop was to give an introduction to how the law can be used by communities in support of efforts to tackle these issues. As with our workshop in London in February, we used our Conversation starter and our Guide for Legal Action as a blueprint (now available in French: Aller en justice? Des clés pour en parler, Recours stratégiques en justice: le guide) to unpack the concept of “strategic litigation” and to explore the different ways in which the courts have been used historically in long-term campaigns for justice.
We reflected on cases dealing with school segregation that are mentioned in the guide, from the fight against Roma school segregation in the Czech Republic to the overturning of Austria’s hijab ban in schools. We also explored the long, and continuing, battle for desegregation in US schools, including the landmark cases in Brown v. Board of Education.
During the second half of the workshop, participants got together in breakout groups to start thinking about what objectives and goals could form the basis of a litigation strategy to tackle segregation in French schools.
By the end of the workshop, we had some of these goals and objectives identified, and there was a real interest in the room to go deeper and to further develop a litigation strategy that can be mobilised and implemented in community. As one participant shared: “The tools offered by Systemic Justice will enable me to continue my learning, but I don’t know of any other resources to deepen my knowledge.” We look forward to returning to Paris to keep building on the work we started on Saturday, and to keep deepening this knowledge.
At the end of the workshop, participants shared one word that summed up how they were leaving the workshop, and we would like to share them here:
We would like to thank Ghett’Up for hosting us, and Deborah Tsamalax, Christiane Tekam, and Natacha Moyikoua for their fantastic translation support.
The workshop forms part of our work to Build the power of communities, movements and collectives in their fight for racial, social, and economic justice and accompanies our Community toolkit for change, a set of resources to help communities explore the potential of strategic litigation.
If you are interested in holding a workshop for your own community, or have some feedback on our resources, please get in touch!