prefects to restrict freedom of movement was unconstitutional. However, in July Parliament included the same measure in the law that extended the state of emergency. Prefects imposed 37 such measures between 16 July and 30 October. REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS Between January and July, the prefectural authorities of Alpes-Maritimes department stopped 28,000 refugees and migrants who had crossed the border from Italy. The authorities sent 95% of them back to Italy, including unaccompanied minors, without providing them with the right to seek asylum in France. Between January and August, authorities placed more than 1,600 Afghan nationals in detention centres in view of returning them to other European countries under the Dublin III Regulation – a mechanism for allocating responsibility for the examination of asylum claims among EU member states − or to Afghanistan. In the same period, according to civil society organizations, authorities returned about 300 Afghan nationals to other EU countries and expelled at least 10 of them to Afghanistan. Authorities returned 640 individuals to Afghanistan in 2016. All returns to Afghanistan constituted a violation of the principle of non-refoulement − the principle according to which states are obliged not to return any person to a country where they would risk human rights violations − given the volatile security and human rights situation in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the eviction of the informal settlement near Calais, known as “The Jungle”, in November 2016, authorities put in place punitive measures against the hundreds of migrants and refugees who had subsequently returned to Calais. They enhanced police stop-and-search operations, which raised concerns over ethnic profiling. In March, municipal authorities prohibited humanitarian organizations from distributing meals to migrants and asylum-seekers in the town. At the end of March, a court ruled that the decision constituted an inhumane and degrading treatment and suspended it. Amnesty International Report 2017/18 Municipal authorities refused to fully comply with the ruling and only allowed the distribution of one meal a day. In June, the Public Defender of Rights (Ombudsperson) expressed concerns about the human rights violations experienced by migrants and asylum-seekers in Calais and called on authorities to ensure the respect of their social and economic rights, in particular access to water and to adequate housing, and to provide them with effective opportunities to seek asylum in France. Authorities continued to prosecute and convict individuals who supported migrants and refugees in entering or staying in France irregularly, for example by providing food or shelter. In August, an appeal court convicted Cédric Herrou, a farmer living close to the French-Italian border, and sentenced him to a suspended sentence of four months’ imprisonment for helping migrants and refugees to cross the border into France and for sheltering them. DISCRIMINATION In January, a law extending the moratorium on evictions of informal settlements during winter entered into force. Authorities continued to forcibly evict people from informal settlements, many of them Roma migrants. Civil society organizations reported that authorities had evicted 2,689 individuals in the first half of the year. On 14 March, the Court of Justice of the EU failed to uphold Muslim women’s rights to non-discrimination by ruling that a private French employer had not breached EU antidiscrimination law in dismissing a woman for wearing a headscarf. CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY In March, a law imposing a “duty of vigilance” on large companies entered into force. The law required companies to establish and implement a “vigilance plan” to prevent serious human rights abuses and environmental damage resulting directly or indirectly from their own activities and those of subsidiaries and other business partners. Victims of human rights abuses resulting 167