Paris (AFP)
The main journalists' unions opposed to the proposed "global security" law will be received Friday morning by the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot in order to "discuss", they announced Thursday.
Invited to the ministry from 10 a.m., the trade union organizations representing journalists SNJ, SNJ-CGT, CFDT-Journalists and SGJ-FO will give a press conference at 11.30 a.m. at the end of this interview, they said in a statement.
Contacted by AFP, the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Christophe Deloire, said he had also been invited to this interview, confirming his presence.
Mobilized "for four weeks" within the coordination #StopLoiSecuriteGlobale ", which also brings together various associations and NGOs for the defense of rights, these unions" demand the withdrawal of articles 21, 22 and 24 of the proposed law on Global Security ", recall they, but also that of "the new national scheme for the maintenance of order".
These provisions undermine "the freedom of the press, the freedom to inform and be informed, the freedom of expression and the freedom to demonstrate", they justify.
Article 24, which crystallizes the criticisms and plans to penalize the malicious dissemination of images of the police, is currently neutralized, pending its probable inclusion in the "separatism" bill, presented on the 9th. December in the Council of Ministers.
Also in the sights of the unions, articles 21 and 22 aim according to them "the establishment of mass surveillance tools".
"The demands that we are making with plural coordination are taken up by hundreds of thousands of French people who do not want generalized global surveillance and are demanding freedoms, all freedoms," they insist in their press release.
On Wednesday, the coordination called for a new mobilization on Saturday in Paris and in France, the previous one having gathered, according to it, 500,000 demonstrators last weekend across the country.
Last week, journalists' unions boycotted an invitation from Prime Minister Jean Castex, who however received RSF and representatives of press editors.
The Prime Minister announced on this occasion the establishment of an independent commission responsible for rewriting article 24, before retracting in the face of an outcry from all sides in Parliament.
On Wednesday, he indicated that this committee would make "proposals on relations between the press and the security forces", while the Assembly's Law Committee would rewrite article 24 within 15 days.
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