Defender of Rights (France)

In France, the Defender of Rights (DDD) (French: Défenseur des droits) is an independent administrative authority of the Government of France, created by the constitutional revision of July 23, 2008 and instituted by the organic law of March 29, 2011.

[1] The Defender of Rights is an independent administrative authority enshrined by the Constitution of France.

[2][3] The current Defender of Rights is journalist Claire Hédon.

[4][5] The expression “Defender of Rights” was used by Gracchus Babeuf in the subtitle of his newspaper Le Tribun du peuple from 1795: “The Defender of Human Rights”.

In 2007, the Reflection and Proposal Committee on the Modernization and Rebalancing of Institutions, known as the “Balladur Committee”, proposed the creation of a “Defender of Fundamental Rights” to replace the Mediator of the Republic, an institution created in 1973 but which is not mentioned by the Constitution.