2023-04-17 10:27:20
Lfreedom of expression, association, right to assemble, to demonstrate, protection of privacy, right to a fair trial… Taken for granted, cherished by all, but little recognized as such, public freedoms have progressed in France over a centuries-old history made up of conquests and setbacks, advances and repressions. A fragile story that continues at a time when they are threatened in a context of social and political tensions, terrorist danger, radicalization of minds, supported by social networks, and massive processing of personal data through the Internet and artificial intelligence.
The League of Human Rights (LDH), founded in 1898 to defend Captain Dreyfus accused by reasons of State, is one of the monuments marking out this long history, where the Republic has often wavered before triumphing. This shows the seriousness of his questioning by the Minister of the Interior and then by the Prime Minister. “It deserves to be watched”said Gérald Darmanin on April 5, in response to an LR senator who called on the state to stop funding the organization. « I no longer understand some of his positions,” added Elisabeth Borne on April 12, accusing the LDH « sambiguities in the face of radical Islamism”.
The accusation seemed like a diversion at a time when the organization is increasing its accusations against the methods used by the police during the demonstrations against the pension reform and the banned March 25 against the mega-basin of Sainte -Soline (Deux-Sèvres), both through the testimony of observers and through appeals to administrative justice.
The glorious past of the LDH cannot, a priori, serve as general immunity. Nothing prevents politicians from verifying that an association complies with the law or from criticizing its action. The raison d’être of the League for the Rights of Man being to protect the individual rights of all persons, including those of deserters and terrorists, it has itself not ceased for one hundred and twenty-five years to shake up the ‘State.
Weakening of intermediate bodies
In the public debate, especially that which tears the left on secularism and Islam, the LDH has not failed to be criticized for its defense of the right to wear the Islamic headscarf, its proximity to the Islamologist Tariq Ramadan, its delay in denouncing the rise of anti-Semitism or its absence among the civil parties in the trial of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Some of his priorities – the banning of crèches in public buildings, the defense of an imam awaiting expulsion, that of demonstrators defying bans on marching – are controversial or misunderstood by the public.
However, by taking over the financial blackmail against the LDH often brandished by the far right, the Minister of the Interior has crossed a dangerous red line. Only illiberal or totalitarian states demand a civil society at their heels. The republican principle according to which the State helps associations financially regardless of their position with regard to it must be resolutely defended. Without real checks and balances, democracy and the rule of law are weakened. Without independent and strong organizations to defend them, the rights and freedoms of citizens are threatened. The warning rings out all the louder in that the weakening of the intermediary bodies that the executive power seems to seek contributes to the shaking of the social contract.
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