As the National Assembly prepares to examine the “global security” bill, the majority is beginning to show signs of division over one of its key but controversial provisions: the dissemination of images of police officers and gendarmes on duty.
This point is causing tension among the left-wing opposition, some journalists, and the Defender of Rights, who sees “considerable risks of infringement on several fundamental rights, particularly the right to privacy and freedom of information.”
In its current form, the bill proposes penalizing with one year in prison and a 45,000 euro fine the dissemination of “the image of the face or any other identifying element” of a police officer or gendarme during an intervention when it aims to harm their physical or mental integrity.
Interior Minister Gรฉrald Darmanin, on the other hand, advocates for enforcing the measure. “If you see a problem that falls under the Penal Code, you will have the right to film it and submit it to the public prosecutor, but if you want to broadcast it on the internet in a disorganized manner, you will have to blur the faces of police officers and gendarmes.”
A citizen and associative mobilization will take place this Tuesday throughout France and in Nice, against the project.
The VIVA! list (left-wing parties and movements) calls for participation: “three of the articles in this bill unjustifiably limit the freedom to demonstrate, while this freedom has already been severely restricted and is once again being challenged by the national public order enforcement plan. Moreover, the bill includes a ban on filming the police. In cases of police violence, this would allow for their concealment, whereas it is precisely the images filmed by citizens that have revealed police violence and uncovered the truth in numerous cases, such as that of Geneviรจve Legay in Nice.”
