Translation of the joint statement by LDH, published on 03/12/2024 – accessible here.
”We’re not giving up!” Demonstrating spontaneously is the exercise of freedom.
Joint statement
Our organisations have just obtained the cancellation of all the numerous decrees issued by the prefect of police prohibiting any spontaneous demonstration in Paris against the pension reform in the spring of 2023, a reform that is still massively rejected.
The Paris Administrative Court ruled that such a ban “infringed on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly“, protected by Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This decision, dated November 29, 2024, is all the more important as the police prefect had seen fit to justify the arrests by considering that, since the demonstrations were prohibited, the demonstrators would commit the crime of voluntary participation in a group formed with the aim of committing violence or damage, thus maintaining an illegal confusion. In this regard, it should be recalled that the Controller-General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty had issued a report on her visits to Parisian police stations during this period and had questioned the “real purpose” of the police custody carried out, denouncing “a massive recourse as a preventive measure… for law enforcement purposes“.
In any case, many fines were issued for participating in a banned demonstration and models of protest had to be proposed to help the people concerned. Today, we have obtained recognition that the decrees on which these fines were based were illegal.
Another important victory: the ban on wearing and transporting protective equipment was also overturned. The court ruled that it was logical to want to protect oneself from gas and projections or the sound of grenades, in order to be able to exercise one’s freedom of peaceful assembly or expression. The seizure of earplugs, swimming goggles or saline is illegal, and the court has just ruled that their ban on wearing and transporting them is also illegal.
This decision clearly indicates that, when the government wants to force a law through the Assembly, it is not justified in repressing citizens who would like to meet spontaneously and peacefully express their opposition to it.
We will never allow democracy to be muzzled. With this new victory, we will continue to fight tirelessly to defend the fundamental freedom to demonstrate!
Signatories: General Confederation of Labour (CGT), Departmental Union of the CGT Paris, LDH (Human Rights League), Lawyers’ Union of France (Saf), Magistrates’ Union (SM), Solidaires Trade Union
Paris, December 3, 2024