On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is concern in France that it is not up to snuff, write Florence Aubenas and Patrick Fiole in this week’s Le Nouvel Observateur. On the one hand, seventy-one percent of the French believe that they live in a country that respects human rights, according to a poll, which was conducted by the MV2 Council. On the other hand, one in three French people says that human rights are not actually respected in many countries that, like France, supposedly have the best practices. France finds itself in a gray zone between image and reality. Like the United States, it’s a country that wants to be a beacon to the rest of the world, but often ends up as a different sort of light—that of an interrogation lamp.

The struggle with human rights has a long history in France. Although the Declaration was proclaimed in 1948 in the aftermath of World War II, Charles de Gaulle refused to ratify it. Since France had created the original Declaration of the Rights of Man back in 1789, he considered it unnecessary to formally approve the document. “These things, they’re good for dictatorships and such. In France, an international control would be a regression,” he said. More likely, it was a fear of repercussions for torture violations in the Algerian War that prevented him from signing on. It wasn’t until 1974 that the treaty was finally ratified by France, and not until 1981 that cases could be brought before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

These days, Strasbourg is held in very high esteem in France. Seventy-five percent of the French think that the European Court of Human Rights protects their rights better than their own courts and parliament. It's a good thing, too, since France is the fourth biggest human rights violator in Europe, according to Aubenas and Fiole. Generally, the decisions handed down cite “racism that permeates society and her institutions” as the primary factor behind human rights abuses. But in addition to that, one can cite incidents of torture, immigration rights, police impunity, and the sorry state of prisons.

Strasbourg is revered because of its clear principles and their fair, consistent application. In the French court system, that sadly is not the case. This is just one example of how France does not live up to the protected rights in the Declaration. For instance, thirty-six percent of citizens believe that France does not respect the right to work, which was included in the 1948 declaration. And the French prison system is a catastrophe: 147 prisons out of 190 don’t meet national standards. Often two inmates have to share a space meant for one. A U.N. worker says that interns are required to look at the French prison files to understand one of the West’s great tragedies.

Despite such a gloomy outlook, France is not even close to being among the worst human rights offenders. Only eight percent of the French say that their right to equality before the law has been questioned, and a mere four percent respond that their freedom of thought or religion has been jeopardized. Still, for a country that created the Declarations of the Rights of Man 220 years ago, there’s been plenty of time for practice. One can only hope that this 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration will be a reminder of the importance of human rights not only in the third world, but in our own countries as well.