More than thirty dissolutions of political groups or associations since 2017; multiple bans on demonstrations against pension reform or in support of Palestine; bans on political meetings like that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in mid-April; police summons of opposition figures – for example Mathilde Panot, president of the La France insoumise group in the National Assembly – for “apology of terrorism” ; the sentencing of a CGT leader to a one-year suspended prison sentence for the same offense… Is France experiencing an authoritarian shift, as part of the left and the far left denounce?
Since October 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, followed by the military response of the Jewish state, the mobilization around the defense of Gazans has increased in intensity: calls to demonstrate have multiplied, as have the protests at universities. Political positions, often controversial, are a daily occurrence. Most of the time, they come from the left and the extreme left, who denounce a risk of “genocide” from Israel.
The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, issued a circular on October 10, 2023, requesting “a firm and rapid criminal response” in the face of anti-Semitism and “the apology for terrorism” Whosaccording to this text, is constituted by “words praising the attacks [du Hamas]presenting them as legitimate resistance to Israel”.
“First shift” after 2015
But the repressive turn did not begin on October 7. The first cuts in the exercise of certain freedoms are a little older, note those who deplore them. “A first shift occurs after 2015 and the state of emergency following Islamist attacks, then with the integration of certain measures into common law”estimates Arié Alimi, lawyer and member of the Human Rights League (LDH).
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Furthermore, since this date, numerous social movements have taken place, sometimes harsh, generating a very muscular police response. Let us cite, for example, the opposition to the “labor” law (2016), the “yellow vests” (2018-2019); the movement against the “global security” law (2021), then against pension reform (2023)… “During this period we saw an increase in police violence, a brutalization of the maintenance of order, continues the lawyer. On the right to demonstrate, there has been a paradigm inversion: before, freedom was the principle and prohibitions were extremely rare. »
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