MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th December, 2020) France's controversial security bill, which seeks to prevent witnesses from filming police actions during demonstrations, is widely seen as government's failure to manage burning issues like terrorist threat and freedom of expression protection than state effort to protect officers amid shrinking public support, experts told Sputnik.
Following a series of religion-motivated attacks in October, including a teacher's beheading in Paris and the deadly knife-stabbing incident in Nice, French President Emmanuel Macron placed the country under high alert over palpable terrorist threat, pledging to boost efforts to tackle it. The disputed legislation comes as one of the security measures backed by the state.
However, the bill, already passed by the French lower house of parliament, has prompted nationwide dismay, leading to mass demonstrations. Protesters have demanded the removal of the bill's controversial Article 24, which provides for one-year imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 Euros ($55,000) in punishment for the distribution of images of police officers and gendarmes that can potentially lead to their physical and psychological harm.
The rallies in Paris and other major French cities have rocked the country for three weekends in a row, often escalating into violent unrest involving protesters and police officers. The latest riot on December 12 drew over 26,000 protesters from across the country, and an increased number of law enforcement agents on the streets. During the December 5 strike over 57,000 people took to the streets to march against the controversial legislation, and the previous rally on November 28 gathered roughly 133,000 demonstrators.
The country's trade unions are calling for the new demonstration on Saturday.
Experts consider the protests against the security bill as links in the chain of manifestations of public outcry over various forms of police violence in France.
"The demonstrations against Article 24 are part of a far wider sense of frustration with the government with regard to its handling less of matters relating to terrorism and more to do with instances of police brutality in France, which has shown itself in various forms during the Gilets Jaunes [Yellow Vest] demonstrations, during the strikes over pension reforms and even more recently in relation to COVID [-19] regulations," Dr. Paul Smith, an associate professor of French and Francophone Studies at the UK University of Nottingham, said.
The Yellow Vest protests, which escalated into violent clashes between demonstrators and police, gained international notoriety in 2018 after what started initially as rallies against fuel tax hikes grew into a large-scale movement. Another nationwide strike marked by hostilities between citizens and policemen in France was prompted in late 2019 by Macron's initiative to replace 42 different pension schemes with a universal, points-based system. Besides, the country is periodically rocked by mass demonstrations against the tightening of the COVID-19 restrictions, as business owners and public employees demanded reopening of their firms and institutions for resumption of normal daily and commercial activities. The most recent rallies have also seen clashes between protests and police.
"We have the impression that the government wants to use this COVID-19 crisis to limit the freedom to express opinions through manifestations," Alain Policar, a political analyst at the Center for Political Research of the Paris-based Sciences Po university, said.
Journalists' unions have also criticized Article 24 of the draft legislation, saying it will hamper the functions of mass media to cover protests and inform the French population, while also violating freedom of expression.
"The text of the article implies that it is leading toward the restrictions of the freedom of expression, which is a fundamental democratic right. It impacts the press and citizens' ability to film police actions during manifestations. It seems that by introducing the 'malicious intention' which can lead to diminishing this freedoms the government goes beyond the regular right and restricts 'intention'," the expert added.
He also noted that the bill's critics believe it questions "many more liberties" under the agenda of justified counter-terrorism efforts.
"We are restoring a regime where everyone is potentially guilty," Policar said.
While those opposing the bill see it as a threat to freedom of expression, its supporters, on the other hand, claim that the legislation is designed to provide more protection to police, as they have been disturbed by a series of attacks over the past months. The assault on a police department in the Paris suburb of Champigny-Sur-Marne in mid-October prompted protests by police officers demanding better protection from the state.
"Police is now in a difficult position. They feel abandoned by the government and notably by the head of state Emmanuel Macron. Police became very unpopular. They were applauded in 2015, and now they are strongly disliked, there is a strong mistrust regarding the law enforcement interventions," Policair said.
In January 2015, France was shaken by three consecutive terrorist attacks, which occurred in the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and Hyper Casher store, and resulted in 17 fatalities, including of a police officer.
Later in the year, several groups of extremists carried out a series of coordinated attacks in different parts of the French capital and its northern suburb of Saint-Denis. A total of 130 people were killed, and another 416 left injured during the attacks.
In both tragedies, the terrorists were eliminated by security forces during high-risk operations.
However, 2020 has been marked by public mistrust towards police. The tensions between law enforcement troops and protesters in recent rallies against the bill also escalated due to the police brutality issue, which manifested itself last month in an incident involving security agents physically abusing a black musical producer in Paris. The security camera has filmed the beating, and the images became public, outraging the French society.
"The images emerging lately made an impression that the police is poorly trained (it takes 8 months in France against 24 in other states), poorly managed, and gives an impression that they act in the logic of repression rather than peacemaking," the expert argued.
He added that although the public mistrust towards police in France varies from region to region, the dismay is nationwide.
In the meantime, the country-wide outrage has also targeted French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who has repeatedly expressed support for police forces and the controversial legislation.
"The government finds itself in a double bind. The appointment of Gerald Darmanin, who came to Macron from the right and some might even say the hard right (which I distinguish from the far-right by the way), was intended to reassure the police and above all their union leaders. The strain that has been placed on them over the last three years has been enormous. But the measure [the global security bill] has produced, as you know, an opposite and equal reaction among the French, still clinging to liberty, especially though not solely through the press and filming police actions. Order and freedom are not always easily balanced," Smith said.
Notably, Darmanin replaced former interior minister Christophe Castaner during a summer government reshuffle, as the latter came in a midst of protests against racial injustice and police violence across France, sparked by the death of an African American man George Floyd in police custody in the US.
In France likewise, the mass demonstrations evoked the controversial death of a 24-year-old Malian-French man, Adama Traore, who was apprehended by police in a manner similar to Floyd's arrest before dying.
