Protests turned destructive across France after President Emmanuel Macron’s administration announced a bill that would expand the use of surveillance tools while restricting the ability of citizens to share images of police officers in the media.
Thousands of French citizens poured into the city streets of Paris, Marseille, and Lille with signs that read “France, land of police rights” and “Withdrawal of the security law” after the government issued a ban on the sharing of images online “with the manifest aim to harm.”
The bill came after the beating of French music producer Michel Zecler by Parisian police officers in late November caused outrage across the country. Images of the incident from closed-circuit television and cellphones were distributed online.
“We’re heading towards an increasingly significant limitation of freedoms,” Paris resident Karine Shebabo told Reuters. “There is no justification.”
Macron met with party members who promised to rewrite the measure.
Macron said that black people in France are more likely to be stopped for identification and noted that he would push for a website that could be used to lodge complaints from unwarranted stops by law enforcement.
