New demonstrations are planned for Saturday in France against the “global security” law 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.
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. As of Friday evening, several thousand demonstrators marched in Nantes.
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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 outrage and electrified the debate. Scenes filmed and viewed millions of times on social networks.
In this tense context, Emmanuel Macron descended on Friday in the arena 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”.
Backpedaling
What would happen if the police could no longer be filmed, question the detractors of the law who fear the scope of its article 24, penalizing those who would like to film the police with malicious intent.
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 rewriting of the text by an independent “commission”. Before backpedaling in the face of the anger of parliamentarians and the majority, to whom Jean Castex had to assure that they would have the last word.
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.
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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 the judicial press, the League of Human Rights (LDH) and other associations.
We risk drama with each intervention
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The police headquarters 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. A gathering of “yellow vests” is also planned at the Place du Trocadéro.
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.
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, social and economic crises, that can be resolved politically, not with the maintenance of order,” he said.
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