It suffices to see the number of amendments tabled to understand that the text is as expected as it is controversial: no less than 1300, from parliamentarians from all political groups.
This is to say if the bill on "global security" examined from this Tuesday afternoon in the National Assembly promises heated exchanges.
Filed by LREM deputies Alice Thourot and Jean-Michel Fauvergue, ex-boss of the Raid, it aims to strengthen the resources and protection of police and gendarmes in the field.
Among its main measures, the creation of a municipal police in Paris, a harmonization of powers between the municipal and the national, the prohibition on the general sale of fireworks mortars, but also better supervision of private security.
Although it is greeted by the corporation, and widely supported by the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin, the text nonetheless raises questions among the opposition ... as on the side of the majority.
Mainly in the line of sight, the use of drones for certain police interventions, some of which fear possible drifts in their use, but also an extended field of intervention on an experimental basis for three years for municipal police officers.
But it is above all article 24 amending the 1881 law on press freedom that is the subject of debate.
It plans to punish one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros for disseminating malicious images of the face of a police officer or a gendarme.
Measure which aims in particular to prohibit, according to Fauvergue, the "cabals" against the members of the police force on the social networks.
"Even Sarkozy had never gone so far"
“There are red lines that should not be crossed.
The text pushes all the cursors, even Sarkozy had never gone so far “, indignant the deputy PS Hervé Saulignac.
Among the rebels, we fear the risk of self-censorship for journalists.
But it is within the Republic on the move and its allies that the debate rages.
“At the start of this PPL, there are still some real good ideas.
But the problem is still to be able to characterize an offense in criminal law, in particular on the malicious nature as drafted in article 24 ”, wonders the deputy Sacha Houlié, moreover hostile to the idea evoked by Darmanin to go so far as to blur the faces of the police officers and gendarmes filmed in intervention.
In the executive, several wonder in particular about the constitutional aspect of this provision, while others clearly announce that they will not vote this article on the grounds that it is "liberticide and that it casts a doubt on the work of the police ”.
Even unease among some of the MoDem deputies, whose curls have heated up all weekend on the subject.
"There are different sensitivities internally, not everyone is comfortable with this text which is causing a stir among us," confides the centrist MP Isabelle Florennes.
But let's not get caught up in the false debates, because this bill is nevertheless a real step forward for our security.
"
The Republic on the move, which no longer has an absolute majority in the Assembly, could paradoxically take advantage of the support of the Republicans to pass this law.
"It could go further, but there are all the same interesting provisions", recognizes Eric Ciotti who regrets, for example, the lack of identity control for municipal police officers, such as the possibility of accessing files S. Last June, Ciotti himself formulated a bill to ban the broadcasting of images of police and gendarmes in intervention.
Proposal which had earned him the ire of the left, death threats, and even the reproaches of the Minister of the Interior at the time, Christophe Castaner, who on RMC / BFMTV spoke of “provocation”, while “the public debate needs to be appeased and not stigmatized ”.
"I will of course be vigilant to the vote of the deputy Castaner who will contradict, I am convinced, the minister Castaner ...", ironically today the deputy LR.