Pro-Palestinian demonstrations: Council of State opposes their systematic ban

Gérald Darmanin recanted. Ahead of a new call for a rally in Paris, the Council of State on Wednesday ruled in favor of the Palestine Action Committee, which had filed an interim resolution challenging the ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations ordered by the interior minister.

The Council of State reminded the government that pro-Palestinian demonstrations cannot be systematically banned and that only prefects should assess whether there is a local risk of disruption to public order.

“Only prefects should assess whether there are grounds to ban a demonstration at local level.”

A telegram from Gérald Darmanin addressed to the prefects on October 12, five days after the deadly Hamas attack in Israel, instructed that “pro-Palestinian demonstrations be prohibited as they may cause disorder in public order.”

But the Council of State, urgently approached by the pro-Palestinian association, ruled: “Only the prefects must assess whether there are grounds for prohibiting a demonstration at the local level, based on the risk of disturbing public order.” “No ban can be based solely on this telegram (from the minister) or on the sole fact that the demonstration is aimed at supporting the Palestinian population,” the top administrative court said in a press release.

It remains that “if the judge regrets the approximate wording of this telegram”, he nevertheless notes “that the representatives of the state at the hearings, as well as the public statements of the minister, made clear his intention: to remind the prefects that they must, in the exercise of their powers, prohibit demonstrations of support for the Palestinian cause that publicly justify or promote, directly or indirectly, terrorist acts such as those carried out in Israel on October 7, 2023 by members of Hamas,” the Council of State added in its press release.

However, in its decision it recalls that demonstrations “aiming, directly or indirectly, to support Hamas (…) by justifying or encouraging violations such as those that occurred on October 7, 2023 (…) are likely to lead to disturbances of public order.” . “

Risk of importing conflict?

The Palestine Action Committee saw the text as “a series of confusions, if not fusions,” akin to a “principled and absolute ban” that constituted “a serious attack on freedom of expression,” according to Me Vincent Brengart, one of its lawyers.

On Tuesday, during the consideration of the appeal to the Council of State, Pascal Leglise, director of public freedoms and legal affairs of the Ministry of the Interior, responded that the telegram “is not normative” but contains “information instructions” to prefects who “lift the bans with detailed justification “

As such, she also raised the risk of the conflict transferring to France, citing “2,500 reports of anti-Semitic activity (received on the Pharos messaging platform), of which 233 resulted in legal proceedings” following the Hamas attack on Israel in October. 7, but also the risks, in her opinion, of people infiltrating the processions to promote terrorism.