Is France’s Article 24 Trump’s Fault?
(published elsewhere on 12/03/2020)
Trump has long attacked the notion of the free press, but now France’s Macron is feeling the heat from activists.
In France, a newly proposed security law takes on the legality of using cellphone photos and videos to capture questionable police activity, reported the Associated Press on 12/2. Within the proposed new security bill, the controversial Article 24 “makes it illegal to publish images of police officers with the intent to cause them harm, amid other measures.”
This past Saturday, 11/28, saw tens of thousands of activists across France push back on the law in fear that it could hurt press freedoms and prevent citizens from reporting on police brutality. Families of victims of police brutality spoke loudly, sharing their fears over this restriction.
Since quality video capabilities became commonplace on cellphones, we have seen its impact on our government's and police forces’ accountability. One could even argue that the implementation of body cams on police officers in the U.S. would not have unfolded in the same way if civilians weren’t armed with video themselves, either recording and then publishing on platforms like Twitter, or going live in the moment, once that capability became available to the masses. According to Macron’s government, the intention is to “protect police amid threats and attacks by a violent fringe.” Still, opposers of the law push back that laws are already in place in France to protect civil servants.
As an American, it’s hard not to ask yourself if Trump’s insistent pushback on the free press has done something to shake the institution globally. America has been a beacon of democracy and a defender of the free press for my lifetime. The state-run press has long been a dictatorship characteristic and brings Russia, Indonesia, and North Korea to mind. While we know Macron doesn’t agree with Trump’s politics, and it’s safe to say he doesn’t appear to like him as a person either, would this law do more damage to France globally if Trump had not made a habit of embarrassing the free press process for the past four+ years? I would argue, ‘yes.’
I feel naive even in considering America a beacon for freedom and democracy pre-Trump because the truth is that our country has long taken that title but not necessarily lived up to it as purely and righteously as we take that phrase to mean. To put it simply, we haven’t always stuck to this responsibility, and that blame extends beyond just the current administration, although today it is as worse as it has ever been. But even in taking into account our country’s stains, western countries, led by the U.S., have defended the free press more so than countries in any other part of the world. And in losing that stark defense of the free press process, be it fluffed up or not, we have lost something that we may never get back.
To even have the conversation about blocking civilians’ right to report on brutality at the hands of their government is to rattle the notion that free speech extends to the right to publish whatever you happen to capture with your cellphone freely. Westerners have taken this freedom as a right since self-publishing became a large part of our online lives. We need to defend this right while understanding that these challenges are now coming from inside the house.
