FRANCE: Bill expands police powers and criminalises cultural events
The French Senate has passed the RIPOST bill, intended to provide “immediate responses” to public disorder and disruption. The proposal was passed to the National Assembly on 28 May for review. The proposed law involves the expansion of fixed-amount criminal fines (AFD), which would give the power to police officers to impose criminal record-level penalties without any judicial oversight or proceedings. Civil society warns that this would risk transforming the police into judges, creating an arbitrary system where people face criminal sanctions based on an officer’s discretion rather than a fair legal process.
Additionally, article 2 of the bill seeks to increase penalties for organising disruptive events and parties and to criminalise participation in such events, threatening the rights to associate and to peaceful assembly. The draft bill proposes €30,000 fines and two years’ imprisonment for organisers of disruptive events, and €7,500 fines for participants of such events. Cultural associations claim that the proposal threatens France’s electronic music scene, which is organised around spontaneous events and festivals.