a qualification of Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and of Article 30 of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, stipulating that there are no minorities in the French state, on which grounds these articles are deemed not to apply. From this curious posture it may be concluded that the Declaration which we are studying today is null and void in France. The former independent expert on minority issues, Ms. Gay McDougall, in pursuance of her mandate, visited France between 19 and 28 September 2007. In her final recommendations she proposed: The Government of France is urged to: (1) recognize the existence of national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities within its territories and to withdraw its reservation to article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights relating to the rights of persons belonging to minorities and article 30 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and (2) ratify the European human rights treaties relating to the rights of minorities, including Protocol No. 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe's Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities. In its evaluation of the French state in 2008, the Committee of Economic and Social Rights said: The Committee reiterates the recommendation formulated in its previous concluding observations (E/C.12/1/Add.72, para. 25) that the State party (i) withdraw its reservation to article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and to article 30 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and (ii) consider ratifying the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, as well as the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Moreover, they reminded to the Estate that the principles of equality before the law and prohibition of discrimination are not always adequate to ensure the equal and effective enjoyment of human rights, in particular economic, social and cultural rights, by persons belonging to minority groups Now let me make a couple of observations about the Spanish state, briefly in order not to take up too much of your time. In recent times the Spanish state has been urged by the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities to reconsider its refusal to apply the Charter to the Basque, Catalan and Galician communities. By way of illustration, I would like to single out the fact that in Navarre, which is a territory in which Basque is spoken, recognition of the right of Navarrese citizens to speak their own language depends on where exactly in the territory they live; consequently, 1,400 girls and boys are now forced to travel a total of five million kilometres every year in order to be able to go to school in Basque, with all the risks and expense that entails. This is happening in Europe, in the twenty-first century.