After a week marked by cases of police violence, a strong mobilization is expected everywhere in France this Saturday, November 28. In this electric context, the authorities fear violence.
Thousands of demonstrators are expected Saturday, November 28 in France against the proposed law “comprehensive security” and its flagship measure, which plans to restrict the possibility of filming the police, while opposition to the text is now exacerbated by a series of cases of police violence.
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Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg, Marseille, Grenoble, Clermont-Ferrand, Caen … Multiple gatherings are planned all over France, against this text deemed to infringe “freedom of expression” and “l ‘Rule of law’ by its opponents. In Toulouse, after a first mobilization Thursday which brought together nearly 3,700 people, a new demonstration is expected this Saturday from 5 p.m. Place du Capitole, even if the prefecture ensures that it has not issued an authorization.
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Gatherings took place in the morning in Rennes but also in Lille and Montpellier, where between 3,800 according to the prefecture and 5,000 people according to the organizers marched. “More cops than doctors, sense of priorities”, “Democracy blurred”, could we read on the signs brandished in Montpellier.
“I’m just waiting for the law to be withdrawn”, explains Adèle Lequertier, a 22-year-old sociology student who came with a sign “Just a fist” in the Montpellier procession. For Maud, 45, who parades in Rennes where incidents broke out at the end of the demonstration, “there is a real democratic denial and we are not going to continue like that. There is an authoritarian drift”.
An escalation
Last Saturday, the mobilization had gathered around 22,000 people across the country, according to the authorities. Since then, the controversy surrounding this text, strongly denounced by journalists and defenders of public freedoms, has grown even stronger.
The brutal evacuation of a migrant camp in Paris on Monday evening and the revelation on Thursday of the beating of a black music producer by four police officers sparked indignation and electrified the debate. Scenes filmed and viewed millions of times on social networks.
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Emmanuel Macron reacts
In this tense context, Emmanuel Macron came down to the arena on Friday to denounce the “unacceptable aggression” of producer Michel Zecler and “images that make us ashamed”. He again asked the government to quickly make proposals “to fight more effectively against all forms of discrimination”.
What would happen if the police could no longer be filmed, question the detractors of the “global security” law, who fear the scope of its article 24, penalizing those who would like to film the police with malicious intent.
Rewrite the article and backpedal
After modifying the text to include guarantees on the “right to inform”, the government spent the week trying to clear the matter. In vain: despite its adoption at first reading by the National Assembly, the controversy was such that Matignon resolved to announce a new rewrite of the text by an independent “commission”. Before backpedaling in the face of the ire of parliamentarians and the majority, to whom Jean Castex had to assure that they would have the last word.
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Under pressure, the executive will assess Saturday to what extent this law can unite against him. At the heart of the turmoil, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin went to the Sarcelles police station (Val-d’Oise) overnight, before posting a photo of this visit on Twitter, a way of trying to demonstrate that this crisis does not weaken it.
“March of freedoms”
In Paris, the head of the protest, two demonstrations were declared to protest against this text, which also provides for the possible use of drones during demonstrations. A “march of freedoms” planned between the Place de la République and that of the Bastille must begin around 2 p.m., at the call of the collective “Stop! Global Security Law”, which brings together journalists’ unions, NGOs, the association of the judicial press, the League of Human Rights (LDH) and other associations.
“It is time to proceed to a general takeover of the police and, to be even clearer, to an overhaul of the police”, declared Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the Insoumis to some journalists, before the departure of the Parisian parade scheduled for the beginning of the afternoon.
The Paris police prefect, Didier Lallement, had initially banned it and wanted a static rally in République, in order to “avoid the mixing of populations” to fight against the Covid-19 epidemic. A decision finally overturned by the administrative court of Paris. In a letter sent to the police on Friday evening, Didier Lallement called on his troops to “hold” the “republican line”. By “deviating” is “losing the sense of our mission”, he added. A gathering of “yellow vests” is also planned at the Place du Trocadéro.
Authorities fear violence
Thousands of demonstrators are expected in the capital. On social networks, the Adama committee which had succeeded in mobilizing more than 20,000 people in June against police violence, called for the rally. A hundred elected officials from the Paris region announced their presence at Place de la République, in tricolor sashes, and their desire to be “vigilant” in the face of possible slippages by the police.
In this electric context, the authorities fear violence. “Almost no demonstration is going well,” lamented Friday David Le Bars, general secretary of the Union of National Police Commissioners. According to him, “we risk the tragedy with each intervention”, when violence is committed at the end of the gathering. “We are coming to the end, the social and economic crises, that can be resolved politically, not with the maintenance of order,” he said.
“Irresponsible” security of the demonstration
Frédéric Lagache, general delegate of the police union Alliance, judged Saturday “irresponsible” the level of security of the holding of the Parisian demonstration. In a statement to AFP, Frédéric Lagache explained that “the authorities expected infiltration of radical ‘yellow vests’, even black blocs during this high-risk demonstration planned for the Republic in Bastille”.
However, he said, mobilizing “2,000 members of the police to secure such a demonstration where we expect about 40,000 people, it is irresponsible for the safety of the demonstrators and that of the police” . Faced with this “worrying and incomprehensible situation” in his eyes, Frédéric Lagache therefore asked that more police officers be mobilized to avoid incidents, “even if there is no zero risk”.
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