Ex-Minister Dumas Wins Human Rights Fight With French State Over His Book

France’s former Foreign Minister Roland Dumas’s freedom of expression was breached when he was fined for comments in his book about corruption linked to Elf Aquitaine SA, the European Court of Human Rights ruled.

The court in Strasbourg, France, today ruled by a majority of five votes to two that Dumas’s rights to freedom of expression had been breached.

The court today ordered France to pay Dumas 8,000 euros.

“Roland Dumas had merely exercised his freedom, as a former defendant in criminal proceedings, to recount the story of his own trial,” the court ruled today, according to a statement. “He had also been careful to put his comments in context and to explain them.”

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