An urgent appeal to the Council of State was filed Monday after the declaration of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, last Tuesday, qualifying any participation in an undeclared demonstration as a “crime” deserving of an “interpellation”.
The request was made by Raymond Avrillier, the former environmental deputy mayor of Grenoble. “This manifestly illegal instruction” undermines “the freedom to come and go” and “the freedom to demonstrate”, he justifies.
“Participation in an unauthorized demonstration is not covered by any text”
“This declaration by a Minister of the Interior, the hierarchical superior of the police, is similar to an administrative decision which is worth an instruction to the police”, considers for his part, Jérôme Karsenti, the lawyer by Raymond Avrillier. And to add: “However, this decision is illegal because there is no offense without text and the Court of Cassation said in 2022 that participation in an unauthorized demonstration was not covered by any text”.
In a judgment dated June 14, 2022, the Court of Cassation had indeed ruled: “Neither article R. 644-1 of the Criminal Code, nor any other legal or regulatory provision criminalizes the mere fact of participating in a demonstration. undeclared,” she said at the time.
An “instruction”
Gérald Darmanin’s “instruction” “was applied by the police and gendarmerie forces, from the following days (…): people present in or around undeclared demonstrations were arrested, sometimes violently, placed in custody. sight, some sent back to the judges”, argues the request filed by the former elected representative from Grenoble.
On the sidelines of the inter-union demonstrations against the pension reform, spontaneous gatherings have multiplied in France, giving rise to hundreds of police custody, often not followed by prosecution. “It is appropriate that the Council of State asks Gérald Darmanin to rectify his remarks”, judge Me Karsenti.
For its part, the Paris administrative court on Friday rejected the urgent request from the Association for the Defense of Constitutional Liberties (Adelico), which asked the Paris police chief to “stop without delay” from carrying out “so-called preventive arrests in its policing policy.