Paris (AFP)

To remove "any doubt", Prime Minister Jean Castex seized the Constitutional Council concerning the controversial article 24 of the law for a "Global security", which aims in particular to protect the police forces against any malicious will of them. identify.

"Anxious that any doubt that would subsist for some be removed on the conformity of these provisions with the principles guaranteed by our Constitution at the time of their implementation, the Prime Minister referred these provisions to the Constitutional Council", indicates Thursday a press release from Matignon .

The Parliament definitively adopted on April 15 the bill on "global security" and its article 24, which aims to protect the police in operation by penalizing the malicious dissemination of their image but which raised a lively controversy.

An article hated on the left, denounced by journalists' organizations but largely supported by the police unions.

On Wednesday, nearly 90 left-wing deputies, including LFI and Socialists and Allies, the center and environmentalists announced that they would lodge an appeal with the Constitutional Council to challenge the Comprehensive Security Act which they claim "undermines the rights and freedoms that the Constitution guarantees" .

Article 24 of this law, by creating a new criminalization of + provocation to identification +, "clearly undermines the principle of legality of offenses and penalties, the right to security, and weighs on the freedom of expression and freedom of the press a serious threat, "they said in a statement.

But they also consider that the text "disregards in particular the principle of equality before the law by accentuating territorial inequalities in matters of public security (article 1), the right to respect for private life through the extension of the uses of video surveillance and legalization without sufficient guarantees for the use of drones (Articles 20, 20 bis AA, 20 bis, 20 ter, 22) ".

Going beyond militant circles, the protest against this law was expressed in the street, sometimes with violence, against a backdrop of societal debate around a police accused of increasing violent slippages.

The most important day of mobilization had gathered at the end of November between 133,000 and 500,000 people according to sources.

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