A Big Brother who has an eye on all its citizens throughout the world. And France is no exception. Here too, the Chinese who campaign for the defense of human rights or who criticize the regime are under surveillance. Europe 1 went to meet them. On condition of anonymity, a 25-year-old Chinese student confides.
Clandestine Chinese police posts in the heart of Paris
“If I don’t give you my name, my phone or my personal information, it’s because the party agents are really very good at watching us,” he says. Because criticizing the Chinese Communist Party, even 8,000 kilometers from Beijing, could get him in trouble.
He and his friends say they are followed very closely by the Chinese embassy in the capital, which deploys electronic means, telephone tapping and exerts pressure on the families of the diaspora. Militants hostile to the regime fear the clandestine posts of the Chinese police, a sort of eye of Beijing in the middle of Paris. According to them, some would be in anonymous apartments in the towers of the 13ᵉ arrondissement.
And relatives harassed in China
“I think these police stations are not limited to arresting people and sending them back to China. It is also to some extent to challenge foreign countries,” warns another 40-year-old Chinese national.
Installed for eight years in the Paris region, the latter made the mistake of criticizing the authoritarian regime and it is his family today who pays the price. “My family, who remained there, is harassed by the police. My parents, my sister, all receive phone calls. They are asked questions, they are put under pressure to force me to return”, says- he. Beijing would have even offered him money for his return, which he considers to be a trap. Because, he says, he would then have ended up in a prison cell.