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Removing this offense from the penal code and returning to the Republican law of 1881, as proposed by LFI to the National Assembly, would not prevent calls for violence or racism from being punished, recall lawyers Raphaël Kempf and Romain Ruiz. But would prevent liberticidal abuses.
The bill proposed by MP Ugo Bernalicis (LFI) to repeal the offense of apologizing for terrorism, to be limited to the regime of the 1881 law on freedom of the press, aroused outraged comments from political leaders or associations which seem to ignore the republican tradition. The anathemas and the errors of law were quickly spread: the proposal would be «ignoble» for the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, “an indelible stain” for Gabriel Attal, even a “insult to the memory of the victims of all the attacks” for Crif.
These radical critiques are not up to the debate that we must have on the repression of abuse of speech. French society is today too fractured to vilify a proposal faithful to republican tradition in this way. The questions asked here are nevertheless crucial in a democracy attached to the freedom of expression of all opinions, even the most shocking: what comments should be punished, and in what manner? Should we resort to police custody, immediate appearance, or imprisonment to combat speech expressing support for terrorism, whether racist or anti-Semitic? Ask yourself if prison allows this
