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Thousands of people demonstrated this Saturday in France against a law that restricts the malicious dissemination of images of police interventions, considered by opponents of the text as an attack on “Freedom of expression”.
The twenty concentrations throughout the country brought together some 22,000 people, of which 7,000 in Paris, about 2,000 in Marseille and 1,300 in Montpellier (south), according to data provided by the Paris Prefecture and police sources to AFP.
The Trocadero Square in Paris was filled with people, under a significant police deployment, in a protest that brought together different profiles of protesters, such as journalists, human rights associations or yellow vests (protest movement that emerged in November 2018), journalists from the AFP confirmed.
At the end of the protest there were moments of tension with the police forces, who used water cannons and charges to disperse people.
In France, a strict lockdown remains in force to deal with the COVID-19.
In Lille (north), a thousand people demonstrated with banners with messages such as “Orwell was right”, while there were also more than a thousand protesters in Rennes (west). In Montpellier the protesters shouted proclamations like “Put down your weapons, we will put down our phones”.
On Friday, the National Assembly approved article 24 of the “Global security”, the most criticized of the text by restricting the dissemination of images of the police, although the government introduced at the last minute an amendment that guarantees the “right to inform.”
This article will punish with maximum penalties of one year in prison and 45,000 euros fine the dissemination of the “image of the face or other elements that allow the identification” of policemen or gendarmes and that may harm “their physical or mental integrity”.
“We are heading towards something that is not a democracy”, criticized Martine Wattoux, a yellow vest protester present at the protest in Paris.
“We are concerned about the slow deterioration of the rule of law that seems lead us to a police state “, denounced the lawyer Arié Alimi, member of the leadership of the League of Human Rights, in a press conference in which members of Amnesty International or journalists’ unions, among other groups, also participated.
In addition to restricting images of police actions, the “global security” law also allows use of drones by the police to record demonstrations and facial recognition through video surveillance cameras, among other measures.
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