Bill on “separatism”: Members of Parliament adopt the article called “Samuel Paty” (illustration) -

A. GELEBART / 20 MINUTES

The deputies adopted Wednesday the article called "Samuel Paty" of the bill against "separatism", which creates a new offense of endangering the lives of others by disseminating, for malicious purposes, information relating to privacy.

This new offense, decided after the beheading in October 2020 of Professor Samuel Paty who was the target of a hate campaign on social networks, will be punished by three years of imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros.

The vote was acquired in the evening by 97 votes for, ten against and nine abstentions.

Tribute to Samuel Paty, differences on the bill

The memory of the assassinated teacher was hailed on all the benches, but gave way to fundamental differences on this article 18 of the bill on the "respect for the values ​​of the Republic", which targets in particular the radical Islamism.

This new provision is seen by its opponents in particular as a new version of the controversial article 24 of the “comprehensive security” bill concerning the image of the police, accused of infringing freedom of expression.

"Very wide margins of interpretation"

LFI deputy Eric Coquerel invited the government to "see what already exists in the Penal Code" to crack down on this kind of behavior.

Socialist Boris Vallaud denounced the creation of an “offense of intent” leaving room for “very wide margins of interpretation”.

Several amendments from various groups aimed, in vain, at the deletion of this article for fear that it would allow attacks on freedom of expression and information under the guise of combating abuses on the Internet.

For the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti on the other hand, this article is the result of “the factual examination of the elements of the Samuel Paty affair” and of the need to fight against “an infernal mechanism which passes through social networks ".

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  • Separatists

  • National Assembly

  • Samuel paty