On 1 December, the Trends Journal reported on the “BACKLASH IN FRANCE OVER PROPOSED LAW CRIMINALIZING POLICE IMAGES.”
In our article, we detailed how President Emmanuel Macron faced intense scrutiny over a proposed bill that would make it illegal to post photographs of police officers on social media accounts with the intent to identify the officers in a threatening manner.
Demonstrators in the country saw the bill as a serious crackdown on press freedoms.
Despite the protests, this past Friday, the French Parliament approved the legislation that critics say dramatically extends police powers, law enforcement’s use of drones, and the “act of helping identify officers with intent to harm them.”
Macron has insisted for months that the bill intends to better secure the public and provide a level of anonymity for officers to protect them and their families. The lingering issue with the new law is that it remains too broad, critics say.
“In the hands of an authoritarian government, such a law would become a dangerous weapon of surveillance and repression of the population,” Cécile Coudriou, the head of Amnesty International France, told The New York Times. The paper pointed out that the bill passed the country’s lower house 75 to 33 and will be challenged in courts.
Protests over coronavirus lockdowns and the police treatment of black residents have been two sources of contention between the public and police. Last year, a video emerged that allegedly showed four cops beating Michel Zecler, a music producer in the country. He claimed they used racial slurs during the incident.
Rémy Heitz, the Paris public prosecutor, held a press conference at the time and said three of the officers involved admitted the beating was “not justified and they had mainly acted out of fear.” They denied the claim, however, that they used the slurs, the Guardian reported.
The Times’ report said the legislation criminalizes the act of identifying on-duty police officers with the “obvious intent” to harm them. Anyone convicted could face five years in prison and a fine of up to $89,800. The original bill called for up to one year in prison and a fine of about half the one of the new bill.
Gérald Darmainin, the Interior Minister who backed the bill, said police are like “society’s children,” and it is up to lawmakers to protect them.
Some in the country also bristled at the idea of drone use by authorities for policing.
“It’s a threat to the right to privacy, but also to the right to protest. Many people don’t want to be filmed and recorded by the state when they go to a protest, so this will have a deterrent effect on demonstrations,” Anne-Sophie Simpere, advocacy officer for Amnesty International France, told Euronews.
TRENDPOST: With the presidential elections coming up next year, only 35 percent of the French people are satisfied with President Macron’s handling of the COVID-19 virus, and his overall ratings are 45 percent favorable according to two recent IFOP polls.
At this time, his top challenger Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally party. Ms. Le Pen’s popularity is rising as the disgruntled country seeks an end to the COVID War, which has destroyed the tourism business and has forced bars, restaurants, and many businesses to be closed – on and off – for months.
Gilles Ivaldi, who teaches at Sciences Po and the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, told the Christian Science Monitor that Le Pen’s party’s ideas “have become normalized and a structural part of mainstream debate. That’s a reality.”
As the Economist wrote this week, “The odds of a Ms. Le Pen victory are no longer close to zero. With Covid-19 infections soaring again and a vaccination campaign only now taking off, Emmanuel Macron’s rating is slipping.”
Le Pen is now leading Macron by 2 percentage points according to the latest IFOP poll.
