Paris (AFP)

Getting a portrait of the President of the Republic to denounce France's (in) action on climate change could not be assimilated to theft and fall within the scope of freedom of expression, the Court of Cassation said on Wednesday.

The highest judicial body in the country had been seized by several groups of "dropouts" (16 people in total) who had stolen openly and without violence in early 2019 portraits of Emmanuel Macron in town halls in Lyon, in the Ain and the Bordeaux region.

They challenged in particular their sentences to fines for "theft in assembly".

The applicants also contested the rejection of their invocation of a "state of necessity", which makes it possible to infringe - in a "proportionate" way - the law in the face of imminent danger.

But the Court of Cassation confirmed the analysis of the appellate courts, arguing that even if the climate emergency is undeniable, obtaining a presidential portrait is not in itself likely to avoid its impacts, even if the authorities n 'would not do enough to fight global warming.

The lawyer for "dropouts", Paul Mathonnet, had above all pleaded for freedom of expression, arguing that "the offense can be the message, when the offense makes sense (...), forms part of the message that she stages "in a non-violent way.

The Bordeaux Court of Appeal, the only one before which this question had been argued, had on the contrary insisted that freedom of expression can never justify committing an offense.

The Court of Cassation considered that the Court of Appeal had thus failed in its obligation to "determine (...) whether the criminalization of the conduct pursued did not constitute (...) a disproportionate interference with the freedom of expression of the defendants ". She therefore overturned the decision and the appeal of the "dropouts" will have to be retried in Toulouse.

The Court of Cassation has also confirmed an appeal decision in Lyon relaxing the defendants of the refusal of a DNA sample during their custody, on the grounds of the "disproportion between, on the one hand, the low objective and relative seriousness the offense of which the interested parties were suspected at the time of their refusal to submit to the disputed levy and, on the other hand, the violation of respect for private life ".

In the same vein, she quashed a conviction from the Bordeaux group for refusing to submit to these levies.

Paul Mathonnet at the Paris court on June 24, 2015 STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN AFP / Archives

Me Mathonnet welcomed the decision on freedom of expression, "very good news for all supporters of non-violent actions".

He also welcomed this "first refusal to condemn refusals to take DNA" in this type of symbolic, non-violent action with an uncovered face.

"We are more disappointed with the state of necessity," noted Rémi Donaint, spokesperson for the ANV-COP21 network which had organized the dropouts.

"But it is clearly a great satisfaction to see a certain recognition of the legitimacy of these nonviolent actions of civil disobedience which have developed a lot in recent years," he said.

A dozen trials of "dropouts" are still awaited.

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