Article 24: the jubilant little revenge of the senatorial right

Thomas Jefferson is seated across from George Washington.

"What can the Senate be used for?"

He asks her, while pouring the tea from his mug into another mug to cool it.

“You have just answered your own question.

The Senate is the cup in which we pour legislative texts to let them cool, ”Washington replied.

While the government burned its fingers with the Global Security Bill (PPL), senators take pleasure in recalling this historic scene.

After being approved by the deputies, the PPL was indeed sent to the upper house, dominated by the right, on November 26.

And his expertise began at the Law Commission.

The government's idea of ​​asking an advisory commission to rewrite the controversial article 24, which seeks to ban the image of a police officer from being broadcast on the Internet by calling for hatred, was quickly scrapped in the face of the outcry, too. well among senators than deputies.

But gives almost unprecedented media visibility in the Senate.

From last week, its president (LR) Gérard Larcher jumped at the opportunity to take on the role of civic education teacher on Friday in an interview with Le Parisien: “I remind you that we have institutions: the executive, with a President of the Republic and a government, and Parliament.

Upstream, to advise, there is the Council of State and the Constitutional Council, downstream, to control.

If we want to think about economic, social or environmental subjects, there is also the Economic, Social and Environmental Council!

I am simply referring to reading the Constitution.

"

"Do the work that was not done in the National Assembly!"

A rule blow on the fingers of the executive that the President of the Senate has recalled greedily on numerous occasions.

And even, live, against Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday at the Elysee.

“We talked about article 24 of the Constitution: Parliament votes the law.

And it seemed necessary to me to remind him because the government seems to have forgotten the right of amendment of the Parliament on the text global security ”, he explains the following day on France Inter.

Senators have not forgotten it.

“We are going to do the work that was not done in the National Assembly!

»Welcomes François-Noël Buffet, president (LR) of the Senate Law Commission, who reminds us that the PPL has not benefited from an impact study by the Council of State.

“Section 24 is very poorly drafted.

It only targets the police and affects the 1881 law on the press, which creates serious and strong concerns about the press, ”regrets the senator who observes that article 25 of the future law on values Republican is "better drafted" and has a similar goal of fighting online hate following the assassination against Samuel Paty.

PODCAST.

Police violence: how article 24 of the Comprehensive Security Act became untenable

Several hypotheses are now on the table: rewrite article 24 by deleting all reference to the law of 1881 or purely and simply deleting it, by referring to the future law on republican values.

“We'll see how we work.

We are going to do substantive, serious work and have an editorial line, ”emphasizes François-Noël Buffet, underlining what looks like“ amateurism ”at LREM.

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A now frequent angle of attack of the right against the majority.

The senators will also examine article 22 of the law concerning the use of drones.

“We have to see how we frame this,” underlines the chairman of the Law Commission.

The two rapporteurs of the commission, Loïc Hervé (centrist) and Marc-Philippe Daubresse (LR), have already started hearing the conference of public prosecutors and law professors.

"We do not hide our little pleasure, all these people must take lessons," we rejoice in the senatorial majority.

The lecture will last until the end of February-beginning of March when the PPL will be examined in the hemicycle.