In the wake of the violence during the mobilization against the pension reform, the government announces ” to reflect on “ to a new anti-riot law, promoted by police unions but deemed unnecessary by magistrates and legal experts.
A resurgence with each outbreak of violence…
The first anti-breaker law is over 50 years old. Worn in 1970 by the Keeper of the Seals René Pleven, with the still fresh memory of May-68, it notably established the controversial principle of collective criminal and financial responsibility for demonstrators, including those who were foreign to the violence.
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Retreats: “In the demonstrations, we feel the influence of the anti-fascist culture”
François Mitterrand then castigated a law which “prohibits the right to demonstrate and to assemble”. And, as soon as he was elected President of the Republic in 1981, he repealed it.
The most recent was promulgated in April 2019 after several months of violent protest during the social crisis of the “yellow vests”. It established the offense of concealing the face without legitimate reason in demonstration and authorized the searches of bags and vehicles, in and around processions.
On the other hand, the Constitutional Council had censored the measure allowing prefects to pronounce administrative bans on demonstrations, on the model of administrative bans on stadiums punishing violent football supporters. THE « Sages » considered that this provision carried “to the right to collective expression of ideas and opinions an infringement that is not appropriate, necessary and proportionate”.
…Under pressure from police unions
In early April, a few days after the clashes around the “mega basin” of Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) and a particularly violent day of mobilization on March 23 against the pension reform, the Alliance union, classified on the right, demanded from Gérald Darmanin “the legal and technical means of preventing violence during demonstrations and punishing their perpetrators”. The Minister of the Interior then approved: “Yes, we will have to come back to the anti-breakers law”.
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“How many injuries and tragedies in our ranks, before providing the police with legal tools prohibiting these criminals from accessing any demonstration or gathering? »reacted for its part the union Unit-SGP after the violence during May 1st.
Violence, extended vacations, lack of staff: unease among CRS
Tuesday, the tenant of Beauvau renewed his will to write a new text, claiming “the strongest criminal sanctions against those who attack law enforcement”. On Wednesday, Eric Dupond-Moretti followed suit. “We are thinking about it, and I am meeting the Minister of the Interior on Friday, we will work together”said the Keeper of the Seals on RTL. “A number of topics including this one” will be discussed during the meeting, said his entourage.
“The new legislative measures envisaged are still under consideration, but we see that there is a need for more means to fight against these thugs at national and international level”we underline in the entourage of Gérald Darmanin.
Hostility of magistrates’ and lawyers’ unions
“As soon as there is a social problem, a law is needed without questioning what already exists in the legal arsenal”deplores Thibaut Spriet, national secretary of the Syndicate of the magistrature (SM, classified on the left).
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He recalls in particular that since 2010, a law repressing participation in a group with a view to committing damage, initially passed to fight against violent gangs, “constitutes the offense on which most of the arrests of the latest demonstrations are based”.
“A news item, a law… I thought we were done with this legislative inflation”castigated Cécile Mamelin, vice-president of the Union of magistrates (USM, majority), pointing to a “political communication that has no interest”.
“There is an instrumental logic of violence”
“We are already over-armed, over-equipped”underlines Nicolas Hervieu, jurist in public law. “If we go further, we risk undermining the freedom to demonstrate”.
For law professor Paul Cassia, it’s “a diversionary operation on the part of the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice (…) to stop talking about pensions or government security practices”.
