In France, the disputed security law proposal, approved last week from the House and waiting to be discussed in the Senate, it has become a big problem for the government and for French President Emmanuel Macron. After days of major protests, Christophe Castaner, head of the parliamentary group La République en Marche, Macron’s party, announced the complete rewriting of article 24 of the law, the most contested, because it introduces a new crime for anyone who spreads images capable of to “damage the physical and moral integrity” of police officers, and which according to critics would be a limitation of freedom of expression. The whole affair has been defined a “political failure” for President Macron.
In recent days, criticism of the French government had intensified following theaggression against Michel Zecler, a music producer brutally beaten by three police officers. The video showing the assault, then released online, was exactly the kind of evidence that would be difficult to obtain and publish with the entry into force of the security law. At protests tens of thousands of people in many French cities had joined those of the press and left-wing parties. Much criticism had also come from foreign liberal commentators, who had already been very hard on Macron for the his earlier claims against Islam.
According to the French press, in recent days Macron has been particularly angry with his Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, the principal responsible for the security law, and with Didier Lallement, the Paris police chief, who could be fired at following the latest episodes of violence, including the attack against Zecler. Darmanin has begun to speak more and more insistently of police reform, even though French commentators do not believe that neither he nor Macron will give up on the crime and security measures proposed by the government in recent weeks.
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According to Financial TimesHowever, it is not certain that the crisis caused by the law will cause consensus towards Macron to drop. The law, as well as other recent government measures against crime and terrorism, is quite popular with center and far-right voters, who still seem to be the majority of the country’s electorate.
In general, said Chloé Morin, analyst at the think tank Fondation Jean-Jaurès, the “vast majority” of French people are in favor of the idea of not making the faces of police officers recognizable in photos and videos, to protect them from personal attacks. According to a survey conducted in late November by the Harris Interactive institute, the consensus towards Macron grew by three percentage points in a month, reaching 49 percent, a value higher than that recorded before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and better than the percentages recorded by former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande at the same time as their presidential term.
It is unclear how Article 24 of the Security Act will be rewritten. According to Castaner, a group of MPs from both houses will have to deal with it after the first reading in the Senate is completed, probably in January; according to the Senate, however, at this point in the parliamentary process the rewriting of the article should be the responsibility of the members of the upper house only.
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