Twenty lawyers have filed these complaints against X on behalf of their clients, protesters who have been taken into custody since the government resorted to 49.3 on March 16.
They denounce arrests and detentions “arbitrary, aimed at deterring [les manifestants] to exercise their right to demonstrate and to break the social movement” against pension reform. Twenty lawyers filed more than 100 complaints for “arbitrary attack on freedom by a person holding public authority” and “obstructing the freedom to demonstrate”, Friday March 31, with the prosecution of the Paris judicial court, learned franceinfo . They represent demonstrators placed in police custody since the use of 49.3 by the government to pass the text of the law. As one of the lawyers, Coline Bouillon, told franceinfo, the criminal lawyers expect to receive other complaints in the days to come.
According to figures from the Paris prosecutor’s office communicated to franceinfo, 952 people were placed in police custody between March 15 and 28, the date of the last day of mobilization. Only 43 people were immediately brought before the court. The majority were released without prosecution, with no follow-up. Others were presented to a prosecutor’s delegate for a “classification without further action under conditions”. In a press release, the lawyers denounce this procedure, which deprives “the defendant of a public hearing” and which can lead in particular to a ban on demonstrating or going to Paris for a period of six months.
“Dissuade people from coming back to demonstrate”
castigating a “right of sanction, opaque and devoid of remedies”, the criminal lawyers and their clients also criticize the reasons for the arrests during the demonstrations. Most protesters are arrested for “participation in a group for the preparation of violence and destruction”, an offense punishable by one year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros. “They challenge people before they have done anything”castigates one of the other plaintiffs’ lawyers, Raphaël Kempf, to franceinfo. “These are ‘sanctions’ police custody, to dissuade people from returning to demonstrate”continues her colleague Coline Bouillon.
“Such a large number of arrests had not been seen since the ‘yellow vests’.”
Coline Bouillon, lawyerat franceinfo
In their complaints filed against X, a copy of which franceinfo has been able to consult, the complainants and their lawyers point out that the fact of being placed in police custody for up to 48 hours without being prosecuted thereafter cannot be the subject of a reparation for “unjustified deprivation of liberty within a police station”. French law does not provide for this. As a result, “the only way to obtain redress is to file this complaint”they write.
With regard to the offense of “obstructing the freedom to demonstrate”, it must “be able to be applied when the police and their hierarchy (…) make illegitimate use of their power”can we read in the complaint. “This organized behavior (…) had the effect of creating amazement and fright among the demonstrators who found themselves deprived of the possibility of fully exercising their freedom”continues the text.
The General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) has been seized of 17 judicial inquiries since the first national day of mobilization, January 19. Among these, one targets police officers from the Brav-M, a decried motorized brigade, recorded making threatening and humiliating remarks towards young demonstrators arrested in the capital.