In March CN Live! was in Paris to film a documentary on the Yellow Vests movement that included footage of French police that under a proposed law, now being rewritten, could have incurred a €45,000 fine.
CN Live! was in Paris earlier this year to shoot a documentary on the Yellow Vests. Before a protest was to begin, CN‘s editor Joe Lauria asked one of the Yellow Vests activists if it were legal to film the police in France. He was told that it was.
Our documentary, by CN Live! producer Cathy Vogan, contained many images of the police in action. Under a law proposed by President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en marche party, photographing the police in just such a demonstration may have been outlawed. The proposal was met with massive protests that began on Nov. 28 and continued Saturday in Paris.
A short video for the #Anti #GlobalSecurityLaw #protest in #Paris 5 December, 2020
The complete version is coming , stay tune.
#loidesecuriteglobale#Paris #Press #Independant #France #Police #stringer #Reporter #international #news #actualité #derniereminute #breaking #freedom pic.twitter.com/NfIpQOY4ZP— JSK (@JSKjournalist) December 5, 2020
Journalist unions protested the new law, saying it would prohibit documenting police abuses. On Nov. 27 video emerged of the police beating an unarmed black man that led Macron to condemn the police behavior.
Michel, victim of racist police violence in Paris, stresses that if it was not for CCTV capturing the incident, he would be locked up right now and the police's lies about him would have been accepted and spread far & wide. How many other victims have not had this 'luck'? https://t.co/jMG1fM3bfH
— Fabien Goa (@FabienGoa) November 27, 2020
The government last Monday withdrew the bill, but instead of dropping it all together, said it will be rewritten. Government officials had argued that filming the police would remain legal but that posting recognizable images of police online to intentionally expose them to retaliation, or harm to their “psychological integrity” would have been outlawed. That left an extremely wide range of interpretations.
The prohibition against photographing cops was contained in Article 24 of the proposed “Global Security Law.” The bill is seen as a Macron sop to the right-wing ahead of the 2022 national election.
The National Assembly approved the proposed law last month but it was still awaiting Senate approval. It is not known when the new version of the law will be unveiled.
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Thank you Joe….for reporting on this anti-freedom, anti-truth Macron govt inspired law and for trying to inform people beyond France of the realities of French police violence toward the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Jackets). They made peaceful protests every weekend throughout (2019) and yet the ONLY mention on NPR was directed against the Gilets Js and definitely NEVER mentioned the French Riot Police violence toward the Protestors (peaceful and against the Macron imposed taxation rise on gasoline because it affected them badly, but not the bourgeoisie, bien sur), nor the injuries (serious) that they caused. Ditto the BBC World Service as heard here in the USA. Silence.
But nothing but condemnation, loud and frequent, about the Belarusian cops treatment of those (pro-westernizing middling class Belarusians) protesting every Sunday….And some of it of dubious origin (going by the BBC’s propaganda rubbish today about a police inspector named Ivan who was visited during the night by black clothed/masked men claiming to be cops and was “Warned” that the next day he would be visited by cops with an arrest warrant…so that night he and his wife packed their bags and fled Belarus to Poland where they now dwell and are learning Polish….
Oh right – the cops come and tell you that in a few hours more will come and arrest you. And that with an arrest warrant pending you can then cross a border in the middle of the night….. But how many will believe such twaddle (and, of course, he spoke English)….
Good point Anne. Virtually nothing in MSM about protests worldwide–India, Venezuela, France etc.
Since the election the MSM default page has gone total bread & circus–celebs’, sports, gossip, puppies, kittens.
In other words–Orwellian
Anne – Good points/supplementary info!