Liberticide

Rachel Tobin

In November and December of 2020, thousands took to the streets across France to protest the controversial new 'sécurité globale' bill, eventually forcing the government to go back to the drawing board. The bill has raised serious concerns both nationally and internationally with regards to police violence and freedom of expression, being widely denounced as a threat to the very fabric of the 'Liberté' upon which the nation prides itself. Although several articles of the bill have come under fire by human rights experts, it is Article 24 in particular which has sparked outrage among the general public.

So what exactly does Article 24 propose and why has it been deemed "liberticide"?

Article 24 criminalises:

"le fait de diffuser, par quelque moyen que ce soit et quel qu’en soit le support, dans le but qu’il soit porté atteinte à son intégrité physique ou psychique, l’image du visage ou tout autre élément d’identification d’un fonctionnaire de la police nationale ou d’un militaire de la gendarmerie nationale lorsqu’il agit dans le cadre d’une opération de police."

"The act of publishing, by whatever means, with the intent of physically or psychologically harming the individual, any images of the face or any identifiable feature of a police employee or national gendarme carrying out police operations."

In short, if passed, the law would criminalise the sharing of videos that show an identifiable working police officer, rendering this an offence punishable by a year in prison and a hefty fine of €45,000. Those in favour of the law insist it provides police officers with much needed protection against online harassment, rather maladroitly described as a virtual form of lynching by Grégory Joron in an article for Figaro. They also tend to emphasise that the law doesn't actually restrict the right of citizens to film police activity, only their ability to disseminate these uncensored images freely and on social media. Some argue that citizens with video evidence of police misconduct should be taking the footage directly to the IGPN (Inspection Générale de la Police Nationale), an organisation that essentially polices the police, to file an official complaint rather than sharing the footage online, as if the two were mutually exclusive.

To claim that the law would in no way infringe on the ability of citizens and journalists to film police officers is at best wilfully naïve, and at worse intentionally deceptive. First and foremost, given the harsh penalties proposed, it would undoubtedly dissuade citizens from filming the police, who may understandably be reluctant to capture images that could land them in jail. Furthermore, Raphaël Kempf points out a rather gaping flaw in the "you can film, just not share" argument and a loophole police could use to restrict the right to film police operations: Livestreaming. If sharing uncensored images of the police were to be criminalised, this would give officers the right to arrest somebody if they have 'good cause' to believe they are committing that crime. Consequently, a person 'suspected' of livestreaming, even if they were merely filming, could be stopped and taken into custody under suspicion of flouting Article 24.

Credit: Koshu Kunii via Unsplash

This suppression of citizens' and journalists' right to document police activity would have a detrimental impact on victims of police violence, who so often rely on the objectivity of photographic evidence to seek justice. In November 2020, Michel Zecler, a black music producer was brutally beaten and racially abused by police officers in the entranceway to his Paris music studio. He was then arrested and detained in police custody for 48 hours, on the account of the officers claiming that he had resisted arrest and assaulted police officers. Thankfully, a surveillance camera inside the studio captured the attack which disproved the police officers' statements and corroborated the police violence Zecler had attested to; a video without which he could have been imprisoned and his attackers let off scot-free. To avoid a situation of ‘he-said-she-said’, the objectivity of video evidence can be life saving for victims of police brutality. Without it, officers are invariably presumed to be truthful and given the benefit of the doubt, both in the judicial system and the media, who love to needlessly highlight a victim's record of petty crime or the fact they were carrying half a gram of marijuana. 

Furthermore, the presence of a camera can undoubtedly prevent some cases of misconduct altogether by fostering a sense of accountability. Would Zecler's attackers have used such brutal force if they had been aware of the camera capturing their actions; Of the fact that these actions could and would be seen by the world? The misguided argument that this video footage should have been exclusively taken to the IGPN, rather than shared on social media, ignores both the mistrust that victims are likely to feel towards the police and government following such mistreatment, and the central role that public pressure often plays in bringing these cases to justice (which is shamefully rare.) 

These practical concerns alone should have been enough to persuade the government against proposing such a law, let alone the more abstract and constitutional issues raised by the global security bill that led UN experts to brand the law as, 'incompatible with human rights and international law.' The bottom line is: the bill would mark a move towards a societal system resembling an interrogation room, with governmental institutions sitting comfortably behind a one-way mirror, able to watch over the people, while restricting the people from doing the same.

Given the huge outrage caused by the bill, it begs the question: Why was such a problematic piece of legislation being pushed through government in the first place? Was it really motivated solely by a fierce protectiveness of the police force? The truth is that the bill has been widely acknowledged as part of Macron's triangulation efforts ahead of his 2022 re-election bid, attempting to draw in right-wing voters with a classic strategy of “cracking down on law and order”. A strategic political trope that wilfully disregards the lives and experiences of those routinely facing police violence. Despite their best efforts, by the 1st of December mounting criticism from the public, NGOs and international powers forced the French government to announce that the controversial article would be rewritten; a move deemed insufficient by those calling for its total revision or removal.

Whilst the future of France's global security law remains uncertain for the moment, it is unlikely to be the last controversy of its kind, as countries grapple with questions of freedom of speech and social media, surveillance, and how to police an increasingly digital world.