At a time when the international order is hardening, when the institutions responsible for defending human rights are being weakened by the brutal return of power politics, the Francophonie cannot afford to be timid or to stand back. On the contrary, it must clearly reaffirm one of its founding vocations: to be a space for the active promotion of freedoms and human dignity.
Human rights are not an abstract principle. They are one of the most crucial indicators of a society's well-being. From access to food and decent housing to civic and political freedoms, including the right to vote, freedom of expression and the right to protest, and on through education, health and participation in cultural life, they form the foundations of just and prosperous societies.
Around the world, these rights are receding or running up against a hardening of power relations between states, as well as authoritarian tendencies. Faced with this new international disorder, our leaders must find a renewed balance between pragmatism and collective ambition.
History has shown it: no lasting progress can be separated from the improvement of human rights, particularly the rights of women, children and minority groups.
In this context, the Francophonie holds a major asset. While the United Nations provides essential forums for dialogue and for monitoring the human rights situation, the Francophonie constitutes for its part a privileged forum for intercultural cooperation. It brings together states, parliamentarians, local authorities, professional and academic networks, media outlets and civil society actors capable of working together to advance these rights.
For a long time, the promotion of democracy and human rights lay at the heart of the Francophonie's political mission.
Today, the democratic fragilities observed in several states of the Francophone world may lead the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) to favour more consensual areas in order to avoid any accusation of interference.
Yet Francophone states themselves affirmed their commitment by adopting the Bamako Declaration in 2000, which provides for a mechanism of monitoring and concerted intervention in cases of human rights violations or a breakdown of constitutional order. That political commitment remains one of the most solid foundations of the Francophone project.
Legal reforms
Above all, experience shows that the Francophonie can produce concrete results for populations. Over the past decade, a joint mobilization of institutional and civil society actors, including public organizations, parliamentarians, mayors, notaries and NGOs such as Regards de femmes, made it possible to tackle the scandal of children without identity. Denied registration at birth, thousands of children found themselves excluded from their most basic rights: pursuing an education, opening a bank account, acquiring property or voting as adults. Legal and technical reforms were implemented in several African countries to modernize civil registration systems and strengthen the capacity of local administrations. Tens of thousands of children were thus able to obtain a legal identity and finally gain access to the rights they had been denied.
The Francophonie also acts through its election observation missions, its parliamentary diplomacy and its often discreet political mediations, in order to strengthen democratic institutions and prevent crises in many countries.
It runs several programs aimed at fostering the economic empowerment of women, as well as preventing radicalization and supporting the professional integration of young people.
But protecting rights also means resolutely combatting all forms of violence and discrimination and upholding the responsibility to protect the most vulnerable populations. Violence against women, particularly in conflict zones, and discrimination based on origin, religion, affective orientation or any other characteristic must be fought vigorously. In a world marked by identity-based tensions, the Francophonie can also promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence between religions and cultures.
A framework for cooperation
In this regard, the Francophone world offers a valuable framework for cooperation among societies with diverse trajectories. The point is not to impose models from North to South, but to learn from one another in a spirit of reciprocity. Canada, for instance, could work with other multilingual countries such as Switzerland and Morocco to improve the effectiveness of language rights for francophones in minority settings.
As the Francophonie Summit approaches, scheduled for Cambodia in November 2026, one question arises: what ambition do we want for a Francophonie that now brings together 396 million speakers? Promoting linguistic diversity, economic development, mobility and access to education are all essential. But improving the rights of every individual remains one of the most powerful means of advancing the well-being of populations.
It is time to place human rights clearly back at the heart of the Francophone project. Only on that condition will the Francophonie continue to be an engine of progress for its peoples and an example for other major geolinguistic regions. Let us reflect on this and mobilize accordingly.
By Benjamin Boutin, Pascale Fournier, Ferry de Kerckhove and Lydie Belporo*
Respectively president of the Francophonie Committee of the Observatory on Human Rights at the United Nations and honorary president of Francophonie sans frontières; Doctor of Laws, founding director of the Observatory on Human Rights at the United Nations and Full Professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law; former Canadian ambassador and high commissioner; and Doctor of Criminology and member of the Francophonie Committee of the Observatory on Human Rights at the United Nations
*Co-signatories: Michèle Vianès, president of the NGO Regards de femmes; Amadou Lamine Sall, president of the Biennale des Rencontres poétiques internationales de Dakar; Anoush Fraser Terjanian, Doctor of History, associate researcher at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre (HRREC) at the University of Ottawa; Amandine Mackako, Francophone executive and entrepreneur, member of the Francophonie Committee of the Observatory on Human Rights at the United Nations; Roger Koudé, Doctor of Laws and professor of international law, holder of the UNESCO Chair on Memory, Cultures and Interculturality; Trang Phan-Labays, Doctor of Political Science, senior lecturer at Université Lyon 3, deputy director of the Institut international pour la Francophonie (2iF)
