France Condemns China’s Execution of French National Over Drug Conviction

China is believed to execute more individuals annually than any other country.

A paramilitary guard stands at a security door inside the No.1 Detention Center during a government guided tour in Beijing on Oct. 25, 2012. Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

The French government has condemned Beijing’s execution of a French national who had been held in a Chinese prison for more than 20 years following his conviction of drug-related crimes.

Chinese authorities had executed Chan Thao Phoumy, a 62-year-old French national who was sentenced to death in 2010 for drug trafficking, the French Foreign Ministry said in an April 4 statement on its website.

The French government had asked for clemency, including “a pardon on humanitarian grounds,” the ministry said.

China’s embassy in France, in an April 5 statement, defended its strict penalties, saying that executions were due to drug crimes and that defendants of different nationalities were treated “equally.”

French media, including newspaper Le Monde and news wire Agence France-Presse, described Chen as a French citizen born in Laos, but Chinese state media identified his birthplace as Guangzhou, a megacity in southern China. The Epoch Times could not immediately verify his birthplace.

Chen, along with dozens of Chinese citizens, was arrested in early 2005 on suspicion of purchasing, transporting, and selling a large amount of drugs brought from Southeast Asia to China.

Chen was initially sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007 for drug smuggling and trafficking. Three years later, an intermediate court in Guangzhou, citing new evidence, added a charge of manufacturing drugs and ordered a retrial, Chinese state media reported at the time.

In August 2010, Chen was sentenced to death for allegedly using precursor chemicals to create synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine from 1999 to 2003, as were other defendants, according to Chinese state media.

The French Foreign Ministry, in the April 4 statement, said Chen’s defense team was denied access to his final court hearing, which the ministry called particularly regrettable and a violation of his rights.

The ministry reiterated the French government’s opposition to the use of the death penalty “everywhere and in all circumstances” and called for “its universal abolition.”

It’s not the first time China has executed foreign nationals. In early 2025, China executed four Canadians convicted of drug-related crimes, drawing criticism from Ottawa.

“Canada strongly condemns China’s use of the death penalty, which is irreversible and inconsistent with basic human dignity,” Global Affairs Canada said in a statement to The Epoch Times at the time.

In a rare exception, China’s top court in February overturned the death sentence of a Canadian citizen on drug charges, according to the defendant’s lawyer. The reversal in Robert Lloyd Schellenberg’s case came shortly after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Beijing to meet with Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping.

Schellenberg was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2018 on drug trafficking charges, but his sentence was changed to death in late 2018 after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive at Huawei, on a U.S. extradition request. Beijing’s move, which included the arrests of two other Canadians, was condemned by foreign governments as hostage diplomacy.

China is believed to execute more people than any other country annually, and Amnesty International called it the “world’s lead executioner” in a 2024 report.

However, the precise number of executions remains unknown because the Chinese Communist Party considers such information a state secret.