They do not disarm: the opponents of the proposed law “global security”, which penalizes in particular the malicious dissemination of images of police officers, demonstrated again, Saturday in Paris, and in several cities of the country.
These parades gathered 34,000 people in France according to the police, and 200,000 according to the organizers, told AFP the Ministry of the Interior and the SNJ-CGT union. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin also reported on Twitter “75 people arrested including 24 in Paris” and “12 injured police and gendarmes”.
In the early evening, the Paris prosecutor’s office indicated that 15 people were in police custody following their arrest during the demonstration, and that, moreover, an investigation was opened for disturbing the peace of others by aggression. sound.
In the capital, the procession of 6,500 people according to the police, 15,000 according to the organizers, marched in a snowy rain towards the Place de la Bastille, behind a banner demanding the withdrawal of this text, chanting “police everywhere zero justice part ”and“ State of emergency, police state, we will not be prevented from demonstrating! ”
The police intervened to prevent “the holding of a rave party near the demonstration ”in Paris, wrote the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin on Twitter. According to the police headquarters, the organizers were fined and had sound equipment confiscated.
In several cities, the “chirps” of the “free parties” movement have indeed decided to join the movement “for the right to culture” and against the “disproportionate repression” launched after the rave de Lieuron (Ille-et-Vilaine), which brought together 2,400 people for the New Year.
There were many of them, in particular at the start of the Nantes demonstration behind banners chanting “we are all organizers of raves“Or” The State assassinates: lives, cultures, freedoms “. The police reported three arrests after “throwing fireworks and glass bottles at the police.”
In Strasbourg many “chirps” were part of a procession of more than 500 people.
In Lille too, the parade had the air of a technoparade, under heavy falling snow. In the procession, Lucile Fremaux, supervisor in high school, judges that “with the environment which is hyperanxiogenic and the laws that the government leaves us, it becomes unlivable”. Timothée Carpentier, educator, complains that there is “more and more control over people, not just delinquents, everyone can be stuck”.
“I am demonstrating against this regime which is showing itself to be more and more radical. It’s a strange dictatorship, we wonder where we are going with this security law … If this is the country of human rights and freedom, I am ashamed to be French! ” reports for his part François, yellow vest on his back, in the Parisian demonstration.
Text condemned abroad
Nearly 80 rallies “for the right to information, against police violence, for the freedom to demonstrate and against mass surveillance” have taken place in the country.
These “freedom marches” took place at the call of the coordination of associations and unions mobilized against this text, which notably restricts the dissemination of images of the police. This coordination brings together associations such as the Human Rights League and Amnesty, as well as numerous unions and associations, notably journalists and directors.
The bill, already passed at first reading in the National Assembly, must be examined in March in the Senate.
“The stakes are […] major. They affect the very respect for the rule of law “and the control of the authorities” by citizens, Parliament, justice and the press “, underline the associations. They still require the withdrawal of several provisions, starting with article 24, which penalizes the malicious dissemination of images of members of the police.
The collective, which asks to be received by President Emmanuel Macron, also targets articles 21 and 22 on the use of pedestrian cameras and drones by the police, and of the “new national plan for the maintenance of ‘order’ (SNMO), regularly invoked by the police to limit media coverage of the demonstrations.
The bill has been strongly criticized in France by the Defender of Rights and the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, and abroad by special rapporteurs of the United Nations and the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council. from Europe.
The mobilization against the proposed law “global security”, launched on November 17, gave rise to several days of demonstrations, often joined by yellow vests. The largest, on November 28, brought together 500,000 people in the country, according to the coordination, 133,000 according to the government.