It has criticised immigration laws it considers severe, "police violence", as well as fast-tracking trials in case of immediate admission of guilt.
[2] Amid the 2005 civil unrest in neighbourhoods throughout the country with large immigrant populations, the union criticised then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's use of what it saw as inappropriate language.
In 2013, the union became the centre of a political controversy that would become known as the Mur des cons affair (French: Affaire du Mur des cons), after journalists published images of a wall in the union's headquarters in Paris on which public personalities, most notably a number of politicians (including government ministers under former President Nicolas Sarkozy), were insulted through pinned photographs with comments.
[3][4] Justice Minister Christiane Taubira reacted to the affair by calling the comments on the wall "unbearable, stupid and unhealthy", stating in front of the Senate that she would ask for an investigation into any possible ethics breaches to get "rid (…) of the suspicion that weighs on [the judiciary's] impartiality".
[5] In 2019, the union's former chairwoman Françoise Martres was found guilty of public insults by a Paris appellate court.