The Conseil d'État dismissed the appeal filed by the Minister of the Interior against the decision of the urgent applications judge of the Nantes administrative court suspending a memo from the Loire-Atlantique national police instituting personal data processing.
In November 2024, the Loire-Atlantique interdepartmental director of the national police issued a memo entitled "Information for prefectures on offences committed by legally resident foreign nationals", asking the departments under their authority to send a coordination sheet to the foreign nationals department of the prefecture every week for each legally resident foreign national in police custody. This sheet was to include various items of information: the person's administrative situation, their criminal record, information relating to the period of custody etc.
Petitioned by the Magistrates’ Union, the Lawyers’ Union of France, and the Human Rights League, the urgent applications judge of the Nantes Administrative Court, in a decision dated 4 April 2025, suspended this memo on the grounds that it implemented the processing of personal data without the required legal authorisation.
The Conseil d'État today rejected the appeal lodged by the Minister of the Interior against this summary decision.
It ruled that the judge of the Administrative Court had not erred in law in finding that the contested memorandum implemented a personal data processing system, which could only be created, under the terms of the French Data Protection Act of 6 January 1978 (article 31), by a ministerial order issued after consultation with the CNIL (French data protection agency).
Following this emergency suspension, in the coming months the Nantes Administrative Court will have to issue a ruling on the merits regarding the legality of the memo from the interdepartmental director of the Loire-Atlantique national police force.
Read the decision (in French)