“Alert to the anti-vaccination poster campaign underway in Toulouse, I asked the prefect to use the appropriate legal remedies to put an end to it”, has indicated on Twitter Sonia Backes, Secretary of State for Citizenship, Friday August 19. She also asks that a report be sent to the public prosecutor.
“One cardiovascular event for every 100 injections. The health of our children is worth more than experimental vaccines,” could we read in recent days on posters plastered on billboards in the Toulouse area. At the origin of this message are several collectives of health professionals hostile to vaccination against Covid-19, including “Réinfo Covid” and the self-proclaimed “Independent Scientific Council”. Distribution is provided by Publimat, a private advertising company based in Meurthe-et-Moselle.
The figure cited on the posters comes from a database of the European Medicines Agency on adverse effects. The latter specifies on its website that these are suspected adverse effects, “which are not necessarily related to the vaccine or caused by the vaccine”. It is also recalled that a drug is authorized if, following an assessment, the benefits are deemed to outweigh the risks.
Embarrassment from the authorities
But removing the posters because of their false nature was not obvious from a legal point of view, which explains the obvious embarrassment of the authorities in recent days. “The first difficulty here is the nature of the content displayed, since we are on the borderline between information and advertising”, says Gilles Buis, lawyer specializing in advertising law. “Advertising aims to promote a product, encourage consumption and gives rise to financial compensation for the owner of the distribution medium, while information, which may be true or false, comes under the freedom of the press. » In fact, antivax posters are affixed to advertising media but do not promote a product.
Under the control of the judiciary, there are two levers to demand their removal. “The town hall or the prefect can impose it if they consider that they cause a disturbance to public order, but it is not easy to qualify legally, believes Gilles Buis. If it is considered to be information, the withdrawal goes against the fundamental freedom of information. » The environmental code stipulates that “everyone has the right to express and disseminate information and ideas, whatever their nature, by means of publicity”.
The second possible legal route relates to the illicit nature of advertising. The author of advertising content must indeed be able to demonstrate that the advertisement is fair, truthful and sincere if it is attacked. Any interested party can invoke a prejudice before the court, which has the power to require the removal of the posters if the content is false. In this case, the court decision targets the advertising company, responsible for the editorial line, and not the individuals who host posters on their land.
Joined by The cross Friday, August 19, the prefecture of Haute-Garonne was not yet able to indicate on what basis the order required by the government would be taken.
In a press release published on Wednesday August 17, the prefect of Haute-Garonne, the regional health agency of Occitanie and the president of the departmental council of the College of Physicians had already strongly condemned these posters. “whose objective is to disseminate false information on a crucial public health subject”. Faced with this disinformation campaign they indicated that they were studying the legal avenues likely to be pursued against the authors of the posters and those who allowed them to be affixed. The mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc, had for his part sent a letter to the Publimat company asking it to remove the posters present in his town.