Macron's 'vandals pay' bill puts France's right to protest at risk, unions warn

On Sunday in Orléans, more than 8,000 people cheered as Marine Le Pen launched her presidential campaign with a promise to "bring back order to France." Her line about vandals drew the loudest response: if it takes their whole lives to pay, she said, then they will spend their whole lives paying. The same idea is now at the center of a legal fight in Paris over who can be made to pay when a demonstration turns destructive.

The government of President Emmanuel Macron, who leaves office next spring, is fast-tracking a "vandals pay" bill. Under it, a person at a street protest could be held liable for up to €10,000 in damage even if they did not cause it, provided they were still demonstrating nearby or were part of the same group as the people who did. The bill also expands the use of drones over protests. The Senate is due to debate it this week.

The text was first prepared after violent clashes that followed Paris Saint-Germain's Champions League victory over Arsenal in May. Prime minister Sébastien Lecornu now calls it "absolutely essential" after the looting and burning seen at recent demonstrations across France. Earlier this month the country had one of its worst days of violence in years, when largely peaceful marches were marred by looting, fires and vandalism of state buildings.

That unrest sits on top of a longer one. For more than a month, high-school students have blockaded schools, demanding a response to teacher absences, repairs to decrepit buildings and changes to the university applications platform. Trade unions and gilets jaunes protesters have since joined the street demonstrations, widening the dispute to the cost of living and public services.

Authorities have answered with restrictions. Macron has not declared a state of emergency, but the government and local authorities have banned gatherings in front of schools and demonstrations in city centres, imposed curfews in some places, and extended police custody for a record number of arrests. Non-union demonstrations that the government deemed "illegitimate" have been banned, which provoked widespread anger at this weekend's marches. Many of those who turned out said they came to defend the right to protest itself, a tool French citizens have long used to make themselves heard by a centralised state, from pension changes to same-sex marriage.

Opponents say the bill would end that tradition. Éric Coquerel of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise said it would mean the end of street demonstrations, because people would not risk being charged up to €10,000 for damage they had not done. Communist senator Fabien Gay told Public Sénat that no demonstration could take place again in the country. In an open letter to Le Monde, left-leaning unions and the Human Rights League called the law unfair, a serious attack on the freedom to demonstrate, and urged that it be abandoned or risk a major step back for the rule of law.

The politics are awkward for the government. Le Pen's National Rally says the bill was originally its idea, and she has used the crisis to stress her law-and-order credentials and back the police, boosting her frontrunner status for next spring's election. She has appealed her embezzlement conviction over European parliament funds to France's highest court. Serge Slama, a public law professor at Université Grenoble Alpes, told Télérama the decrees restricting public liberties were unprecedented, and warned they would help a far-right government impose further crackdowns without changing the law.

On Monday, Lecornu will meet representatives of the protesting high-schoolers, under pressure to answer their demands with funding and school repairs and so head off further blockades. The Senate debate follows within days.