France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, announced on Saturday via the social media platform X that Paris is advancing a draft resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council. This diplomatic initiative aims to prohibit states from criminalizing LGBT+ individuals worldwide. The move comes two months after Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye enacted a new law significantly increasing penalties for homosexuality in the West African nation. Notably, a French national is currently held in custody in Dakar under the provisions of this very legislation.
“You can count on France: it works, and will always work, to advance the human rights agenda,” stated the head of French diplomacy, acknowledging a “conservative surge” that has been gaining traction across most regions globally over the past decade.
Diplomatic sequence initiated after march 11 law
The new legislation, which passed the Senegalese National Assembly on March 11, 2026, with 135 votes and no opposition, was subsequently promulgated on March 30. It escalates the maximum prison sentence for “acts against nature” from five to ten years and multiplies the cap on fines tenfold, now set at ten million CFA francs. Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko championed the text as a measure of national sovereignty. The law also introduces an offense for the promotion, support, or financing of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk had previously urged Dakar not to promulgate the text, asserting that it violated Senegal’s international commitments. On April 16, Pascal Confavreux, spokesperson for the Quai d’Orsay, conveyed Paris’s concerns, specifying that Minister Barrot had addressed the matter with his Senegalese counterpart, Cheikh Niang, during a meeting at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
French national detained in Dakar
A French citizen has been detained in Senegal since February 14, facing charges under the new legislation. According to the Quai d’Orsay, the French consulate in Dakar has visited him four times, and officials remain in contact with his family. Furthermore, on April 10, a Dakar court sentenced a young Senegalese, born in 2002, to six years in prison for similar offenses.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that 62 states continue to criminalize consensual homosexual relations, with eleven of these jurisdictions even prescribing the death penalty. The specific date for the examination of France’s proposed resolution by the Human Rights Council in Genève has not yet been disclosed.
